The Man In The Long Black Coat
by chi-chi-chimera
Summary: SPN/GO/Lucifer Sandman  crossover. For all their dealings with pagan gods and monsters from mythology, Sam and Dean ought to know by now that there are more powers in the world than Heaven and Hell.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Man In The Long Black Coat

**Rating:** PG-13 for language and violence

**Pairings:** Brief Dean/Castiel, Crowley/Aziraphale

**Total Word Count:**

**Warnings:** Violence, some language, possibly blasphemous concepts,

**Author's Note:** A triple crossover between Supernatural, Good Omens, and the Lucifer comics by Mike Carey. Set during Supernatural's 5th season, and has elements of AU for all of it that's been shown so far, and will definitely be AU for the eventual ending. Set after the events of Good Omens and sometime between Lucifer #44 and #46.

**Summary:** For all their dealings with pagan gods and monsters from mythology, Sam and Dean ought to know by now that there are more powers in the world than Heaven and Hell.

**1.**

This was meant to be a simple salt and burn. Just in and out, dig up the grave of the old guy who had been drowning young men like the one who had knocked up his daughter fifty years ago, and that would be that. As Dean wipes the last traces of dead flesh and goo he'd rather not think about from his face, making an exaggerated expression of disgust, he thinks he ought to have realised by now that nothing goes quite to plan any more. God, but he and Sam stink to high heaven right now, and there's no way he's going to get bits of zombie on the Impala's upholstery. Luckily they keep a tarp rolled up and stuffed in the back seat foot-well for times like this; it's a lesson they learned a long time ago.

"Do you think this is another sign of the Apocalypse?" Sam asks, inspecting his ruined shirt mournfully. It's no loss, Dean thinks, it was ugly anyway. "I mean, this is the second group in two weeks, though at least they weren't acting human this time around. More like the kind of zombies we're used to hunting. But I bet Death is behind this as well."

"Yeah," Dean says, not that he really gives a damn at this point in time. He's _tired_, okay, and he thinks he's got good reason to be. If this is Death's work, they can deal with it in the morning. Right now he just needs a shower, and its half an hour's drive back to the motel, and he can't deal with any of this apocalypse bullshit right now. "We'll think about it tomorrow, okay? I'll call Cas and see what he thinks." He wipes the blade of his shovel clean on the grass before shouldering it, sighing.

Sam nods, looking about as tired as Dean feels. He's practically swaying on his feet, so Dean guesses there's no question about who's going to be driving the Impala. He's just started to head down the path when he sees Sam isn't following him. Instead he's staring off across the cemetery at a point in the trees near the boundary wall, and tension is knotting his shoulders. Dean turns, his hand going to his gun instinctively before he remembers he ran out of ammo sometime in the past half-hour. He curses under his breath.

There is a man standing in the shadows of a laurel, leaning against the trunk and smoking casually, as if the whole cemetery hadn't been swarming with the legions of the undead ten minutes ago. Dean exchanges a look with his brother, a non-verbal question, _you got ammo?_ Sam shakes his head slightly. Looks like they'll be bashing the guy over the head with the shovels if it comes to that. But so far he's done nothing, not even moved. He's just watching them, raising the cigarette to his lips in long, slow breaths.

"Fuck this," Dean says. "I'm going to see what he wants."

"Dean," Sam says, his tone cautious, but as he puts out an arm to block his movement forward the man looks up, smiles at them, and vanishes, quite literally, into thin air.

"Oh come on!" Dean says, throwing one hand up in a vicious gesture. "Fucking angels." As if their night wasn't bad enough already. They drag themselves home, and Dean tries not to think what it means that Heaven has managed to find them again.

* * *

><p><strong>2.<strong>

_Nine months ago._

Here is a lesson Heaven never learnt; angels gossip, if you leave them to their own devices, and you never know who might be listening in. Perhaps this pair think that they can walk into Lucifer's territory with impunity because he has a new creation to tend, not to mention the innumerable other plans he is spinning into his web at any one time, but they are wrong. Foolish of them to think they would not be overheard not a block from his stronghold, but they are Third Sphere, and their kind has never been known for their critical thinking.

"They say there are only a few more seals left before he is loose," one whispers to the other. They are squeezed into human vessels, wings constricted. Younglings who know no better. They were not around for the War or for the Fall, so how can they appreciate who he is? They only know of him from stories, as the Adversary, and then... as no-one. But ignorance is no excuse to the Morningstar.

"Lilith will not succeed," the second angel says firmly. "The power of Heaven is more than a match for her."

It is the mention of Lilith's name that stays his hand. It would take but a touch of his Grace to scare them off, but now Lucifer wants to hear what they have to say to each other. He knew Lilith, a long time ago. Without her, he suspects it would have taken him much further to find his own independence, but it has been half a billion years since he last saw her. It seems strange that she could come out of hiding without his hearing of it before, and if it is _not_ her, then whoever the imposter is must be very brave or very stupid to take on her name. The Lilim would not take very kindly to it.

"I do not doubt our orders," the first says, "but this demon is wily, as you know."

"True, but we have the Righteous Man, and we have his brother, and you know the final seal cannot be broken so long as that abomination does not use its powers."

"I do not understand why we allow him to live," the angel says, sneering. "He cannot break anything if he's dead."

"The Righteous Man loves his brother," the other says patiently, "and he would not cooperate if we did that. Castiel has been given charge of them, and you should not question his decisions."

"Castiel is but a Principality, and he has been given the power of a Dominion! And Uriel himself I hear is as near as taking orders from him. I have never heard of such a thing, and why? Is he that virtuous a soldier? Are we not all virtuous in doing God's work?"

"Perhaps it is because he does not question our Father's wishes?" the other says sharply.

The Morningstar lets them go. He has heard enough, and this intrigues him. It is clear that the angels were referring to the sixty-six seals that once held him in Hell, before he took the metaphorical back door out. They are without purpose now, and he cannot imagine why anyone would go to the bother of breaking them. If they wanted to free a Duke, there are easier ways. But clearly someone is doing it, and this bothers him. There is always a reason, and usually one which does not take a great deal of effort to divine, but not this time. Something is off here, and he doesn't yet know what. He will have to make some enquiries.

* * *

><p>Lucifer has had whole eras of the Earth to amass knowledge of every corner of creation, to have allies and contacts in every pocket dimension and planet with sentient life. With Yahweh gone, he has power besides to work with too. However it would be foolish to start asking around before exploring the most obvious option; the Lilim themselves. Though Mazikeen is not perhaps on the best of terms with him at the moment, their deal is square, and he is prepared to owe her a favour. Better than trying to ask angels, or lowering himself to admit ignorance to Michael. The demon in question is with her people in his own universe, as expected. Her brothers and sisters turn to watch him cautiously as he passes through their camp.<p>

"Have you heard news of your mother recently?" he asks when he finds her, straight to the point. There has never been any need for idle pleasantries with Mazikeen, something he had enjoyed about her company.

"No lord," she says, "not for a long time. You wish to find her?" She frowns a little, visible only on the side not hidden by her mask. It is as he expected, but it would be asinine not to ask and thereby miss a simple and obvious answer.

"Not as such," he replies. "There is a being using her name, breaking the sixty-six seals. You may wish to look into it."

Mazikeen inclines her head. "Yes," she says, with no small venom. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention lord. The imposter shall be found, and we shall take great care in dealing with it." Her smile is cruel, and he likes it.

It will take a little while for her to make any progress, and in the meantime the Morningstar has many other things which require his attention. He will leave this with Mazikeen for now. It is not urgent, and it will wait.

* * *

><p><strong>3.<strong>

A week passes without news from Mazikeen, and in the meantime Lucifer has tuned his awareness back in to the seals for the first time in several decades. It both worries and surprises him that only eleven remain before that magic number is reached. This is proceeding far faster than he had expected, which makes him suspect there is more to this than the overheard conversation led him to believe. It is not as if the seals are unprotected, though it is possible the chain of command in Heaven is somewhat uncertain these days. There was chaos enough the last time he visited. In any case, he needs more information, and since the Lilim have found nothing, he must turn to other sources. The rumour mills of Heaven and Hell are fertile gardens for gossip, and if anyone knows what is going on, the word will filter out from them. He needs only to tap into it.

The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley occupy interesting positions in their respective hierarchies. After the last aborted Apocalypse both Beelzebub and Metatron were well aware that the pair had something to do with stopping it, but as the actual act itself had been all the work of the Antichrist, it was impossible to find something that they had exactly done wrong. As massive bureaucracies are wont, neither side wanted to upset the status quo, and the whole business was quietly swept under the rug. Not forgotten, however, which meant they were left to their own devices for the most part, in the hope of providing enough rope for them to hang themselves. The most important factor, from Lucifer's point of view, is that no-one lower than the Seraphim or the Dukes actually knows any of this. Crowley and Aziraphale are free to walk their respective homes and talk to whoever they want. Just what he needs.

The Morningstar does not anticipate having to work hard to convince them to play along. He may not rule Hell anymore, but he had been at that time, playing his role in the end of the world, and he had seen the potential for something... unusual. An angel and a demon standing side by side against the storm, working together. A rare sight indeed. He has kept an eye on them, even after his retirement, and there have been some _interesting_ developments since then. The sort of thing that wouldn't be overlooked, not when both sides were just itching to take them down for _something_. You expect pettiness from Hell, from Heaven it just proves a sanctimonious point.

Lucifer does not announce his arrival, but he has the taste not to simply materialise right next to them. It would be bad manners, not to mention – depending on what they were doing at the time – arouse a not inconsiderable amount of embarrassment and anger. While he may want them off guard, _that_ would be counter-productive. Instead, he walks through the front door of Aziraphale's dusty bookshop in downtown Soho, London, ignoring both the lock and the 'Closed' sign, letting the bell jingle into the muted silence that all such stores seem to carry around them. Angels, he finds, tend to have a fondness for books, although Aziraphale's interest in prophecy is at least more useful than Meleos' collection, though he disapproves of any method of predestination on principle. Still, threatening the books will probably not be necessary in this case.

"I'm afraid we're closed for the evening, there _was_ a sign..." Aziraphale's voice trails off as he comes out of the back room and sees who is waiting for him by the counter. "Oh. Oh dear."

Lucifer smiles, taking note of the angel's ruffled hair, open collar and flushed face. "I do hope I'm not interrupting anything," he says, looking expectantly back the way Aziraphale came. The angel blushes even harder and turns his head.

"Crowley," he calls, "I think you'll want to be out here for this."

The demon is in an even worse state of undress, which has the interesting effect of highlighting just how pale he turns on seeing the Morningstar. He manages to miracle his shirt back on after the second try, and stammers out a respectful greeting.

"I'm assuming you're here for a reason Morningstar," Aziraphale says coldly, drawing himself up to his full, if rather unimpressive, height and folding his arms, positively crackling with angelic energy. Lucifer has never made the mistake of underestimating him despite his less than fearsome appearance. He does not forget the angel was once a Seraph, and no matter how diminished his rank may be now, that is not power that ever truly fades, though it may lie dormant. Aziraphale may have forgotten what the taste of his full Grace really feels like, but given sufficient stimulus, Lucifer has no doubt he would be able to find it again. Even though the angel would be no real challenge, he has never taken by force what he could get through words instead.

"I am here for information," Lucifer says crisply. "Or more precisely, rumours."

Crowley visibly relaxes at this. He has always been understandably nervous around the once-ruler of Hell, and the Morningstar doubts that will ever change. Sometimes he thinks Crowley something of a coward, but he always manages to do something to surprise him. It is probably due to all the time spent on Earth, but the distorting nature of Hell has had less effect on him than most other demons he could name. "We can do that," the demon says thankfully. "I like to think I'm still well up in the water-cooler gossip, especially with the ex-humans."

"Age has its advantages there I'm sure," Lucifer replies smoothly. "I want to know about a being calling itself Lilith. Not the genuine article." His gaze flickers over to Aziraphale. "And a Principality turned Dominion named Castiel."

The angel nods firmly, still in his wary stance. Perhaps he heard about what happened to Meleos. Angels are so touchy about their belongings. "I'll ask around," he says. "The name sounds a bit familiar, though I'm sure he's not in my garrison."

"I'll be back in a week," Lucifer says, and leaves, slipping through the space of infinity into one of the doors only he can see, back to his own Creation.

* * *

><p>"Shit," Crowley gasps after the Morningstar has left. "A week. That's not exactly a lot of time, is it?"<p>

"Calm down dear," Aziraphale says, with a distracted air. "I have to wonder why he came to us. We're not the most well connected beings in Heaven and Hell, now are we?"

"Angel, do I look like I give a fuck? I just want him to leave satisfied, and with us in one piece."

"I don't think he still cares about the Apocalypse you know," Aziraphale says conversationally. "He didn't _seem_ angry to you, did he?"

"It's Lucifer, Aziraphale; he doesn't go around _advertising_ it like some of your lot. It isn't his style. You just push too far and _bam_," He snaps his fingers violently. "You go up in a ball of flame. No sodding thank you."

Aziraphale sighs. "There's no need to be so melodramatic my dear, I take your point quite clearly. We'll just do as he asks and everything will be fine. I doubt he can be bothered to waste any energy on the likes of us. And we can rely on his discretion as well, if only because he likes to have _something_ to hang over people's heads."

"Well I'm not about to take any chances until the week is over," Crowley says, waving his hand vaguely to return himself to snappily-dressed normal, suit and tie perfectly crisp as though he hadn't dumped them on the floor ten minutes ago. "I'm going to stock up on holy water and holy oil. You should too, you know."

"Crowley," Aziraphale says in a conciliatory manner, but it's too late. The fallen angel has already spread his wings and is gone.

* * *

><p>Crowley rather enjoys working alone, not counting Aziraphale of course, but luck favours the well-connected, and so he likes to keep an ear to the ground when he can. The lesser demons come in very useful here, since as cannon-fodder they have a healthy – or not so healthy as the case may be – turnaround time between Earth and Hell, and considering the only real way to get ahead in Hell is through a mixture of age, the ability to kick those weaker and smaller than you in the tender areas, and good old-fashioned arse-licking, the favour of the Fallen is always in high demand. But age is the most important of these. Stay alive long enough and you'll move towards the top through sheer attrition. Age has always conferred power in Hell.<p>

The whole concept of corrupting certain of the souls in Hell into new demons had been mostly an accident, but it remains one of the most effective innovations in Hell's history. As Crowley often mentions in his reports – and honestly, he never thought anyone actually read those things, or he would never have said anything – humans are far, far better at the business of evil than your average fallen angel. They have imagination. Angelic stock, even with the influence of Hell itself clawing into their Grace for a billion years, can't come up with anything even close to their dizzying heights of nastiness. Or good, for that matter, but it seemed Heaven hasn't caught on to that idea as a recruitment policy yet.

Crowley's main contact within these lesser demons, those who used to be human once, before Hell dug its claws into them, is not quite your everyday rank and file grunt. They've known each other for a very long time, nearly as long as he has known Aziraphale, and they are friends, as much as two demons can be. He was one of the first generation, back in the old days of Ur, of Sodom and Gomorrah, when humans had only just developed far enough to be capable of choice. Back when Adam and Eve had only recently been chucked out of Eden, and he and his angel were still at each others' throats most of the time. Back then, everyone had to have a go at the torture business, just so the Dukes could find those with a real talent for it. Crowley hadn't exactly enjoyed it, but back then he was... colder. Angrier. Anyway, the man he broke became his protégé of sorts for a time, before he struck out on his own, and there's always been a sort of twisted affection between them.

James has gone through a lot of names, but he's been using Crowley's as his surname for several hundred years now. It comes in useful; there are advantages to being able to be in two places at once, including a healthy boost to his reputation, and as James works over in America in Sales there's no harm in the borrowing. He's rather used to it now, and it is after all something of a compliment.

Crowley hasn't talked to James since the Second World War, when Crowley was hanging around Germany making sure no-one had figured out how to use the Spear of Destiny, and racking up commendations downstairs for things he had absolutely no part in, and which in all honesty made him slightly ill, and which he tried very hard not to think about. James, predictably, loved every minute of it. He hasn't exactly been entirely truthful with the other demon, but then no-one ever is in Hell. Trust isn't a word his side are familiar with. Friendship only goes so far. Still, he doubts most demons are covering up fraternisation with an angel.

Anyway, James doesn't know any of this. He doesn't know Crowley tried to stop the Apocalypse, or about the Arrangement. He actually looks up to Crowley, believes everything that's written down on all those commendations he's received for things he was only ever in close proximity too. The Holocaust. The Spanish Inquisition. It's... unpleasant, but James is far nastier than he would ever want to be. Ex-human, remember. But whatever's going on here, he'll know about it. Sales gets all the gossip.

* * *

><p><strong>4.<strong>

It has been some time since Aziraphale has been back to the Silver City; not since his last discorporation indeed, and that was centuries ago. He is expecting to be held up at the gates for some time while they check his papers, so to speak, but he is pleasantly surprised when the Seraph on desk duty waves him in, barely looking up. Once inside, he allows himself to shake out his wings and unfurl his Grace, sunning himself in the warmth of his first home. But there is something not quite right, some strange feeling or aura that should not be here. He frowns as he tries to work out what exactly he's sensing, but it is too vague to pin down. In any case he has a job to do; there's little time to waste. It is probably nothing significant.

It is not too difficult to track down Castiel's location. He goes to visit his garrison first of all, and finds no-one has been told about his role in the Apocalypse, which is rather cheering. Of course, all his friends are Second and Third Sphere, so perhaps the Firsts are keeping it to themselves for now. He spends some time chatting with Malakai and Tienel, a pair of Powers he had become quite friendly with after his demotion, and after the usual gossip and catching up, he gets them round to the topic at hand.

"Castiel," Malakai says thoughtfully. "I think I know that name. Yes, I recognise it from one of the reports. He's up to something important, so I hear. One of... Her garrison." He looks half-disgusted, half-pitiful. Aziraphale is immediately concerned.

"Her?" he asks. "What are you talking about?"

"Anael," Malakai says. "She chose to Fall some time ago. Of course you wouldn't know, you haven't exactly been keeping in touch." He gives Aziraphale a reproachful look, not that he notices it. There's a kind of white noise filling his head. Shock, he thinks dully. Anael... she is – _was_ – one of the Seven, the Archangels who were Firstborn, who sit at the foot of their Father's throne. It is practically inconceivable that she should Fall.

"What?" he says aloud. "But... _how_?"

"No-one knows," Tienel says. "She wanted to become a human they say, though how true that is..."

There must be more to the story than that, Aziraphale thinks, pulling himself together. He has a task to do here, and he shouldn't let any news, no matter how bad, put him off from it. And perhaps Castiel will know more, if he was under her command. He can ask.

"You say Castiel was in her garrison?"

Malakai nods. "They put Zachariah in charge in the meantime. They've been given some sort of important task to do, down on Earth. I don't suppose you've heard anything? I mean you're down there all the time..."

"No, I'm sorry," Aziraphale replies, smiling tightly. "But if I hear anything, I promise I'll pass the word along."

"Thank you brother," Tienel says, stepping forward to hug him, their wings touching softly. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

"Do pop in from time to time," Malakai tells him. Aziraphale waves goodbye to them as he stretches his wings and takes to the air. They have a point. He does have friends in Heaven, for all that they would probably shun him or worse if they knew everything he was up to on Earth, and he shouldn't neglect them.

Anael's garrison is not far away from Raphael's, but Aziraphale is becoming very aware of the amount of time he spends in the Silver City. It does not pass at the same speed as on Earth, though unlike Hell, it is faster, not slower. He has only been here for a short while, but it must have been several days on Earth at least, and Lucifer only gave him a week. He enters the tall building, his footsteps echoing on the marbled floor of the atrium. There aren't many angels about, and the board behind the reception desk has about half the flags flipped down to show the relevant names are on Earth. He pauses when he sees the blank spaces where some names have been removed altogether. Whatever is going on, his brothers are _dying_ for it.

"Hello," he says to the Power behind the desk, trying for jolly but falling flat. "I'm looking for Castiel."

"Earth," the angel says, not looking up from his paperwork.

"Um, yes," Aziraphale says, "but I was hoping to be a bit more specific than that."

The Power looks up, sighs, and slides a form towards him. "If you've been requisitioned for Seal duty you need to speak to Uriel. Fill this out please."

"Oh, no, no," he stammers, shaking his head. "No, I just needed to talk to him."

The Power regards him suspiciously. "Okay," he says slowly. "He's in South Dakota, America. Sioux Falls. But he's very busy, so if he doesn't want to speak to you, don't come complaining to me."

"Ah. No. Thank you." Aziraphale backs away and leaves quickly. Uriel? He thought Zachariah was in charge of their garrison now? This is all very strange, but then he supposes that if Lucifer had wanted to know about it, there must be something going on. But what? Ah well, he has Castiel's location now, and perhaps then things will become a little clearer.

* * *

><p>Castiel, when he finds him, is keeping watch over a house in the middle of a scrap-yard. It's in one of the quieter suburbs of the town, and there is nothing particularly unusual about it. Castiel doesn't react in the slightest when Aziraphale alights beside him. He holds himself very stiffly in his human vessel, as though he isn't quite used to how it feels yet. He is surprisingly young; from the way the Power had spoken, Aziraphale had been expecting someone his age. Castiel is nearly a fledgling. He clears his throat, and Castiel's head turns, independent of the rest of his body.<p>

"Hello brother," Aziraphale says brightly. "I don't suppose I could have a word? If you're not too busy that is."

Castiel turns to face him properly, gaze bright and scanning him closely. Aziraphale can feel the itch as it presses on his Grace. "I do not believe I know you, brother," the Principality says, narrowing his eyes.

"My name is Aziraphale, one of Raphael's garrison," he replies, a little taken aback by the other angel's almost-hostility. His stare rather reminds him of Crowley's; there is a certain lack of blinking going on. "I was told you were here, and I just wanted to speak with you for a moment. It won't take long." He smiles, trying to look friendly.

"What are your orders?" There's not a hint of emotion. It's unnatural, even for one of Heaven's front-line soldiers, which Castiel clearly is.

"Well, I don't have any, specifically. I mean," he says quickly, "it is quite important I talk to you, but it's not quite official, if you see what I mean."

It's as if a switch was flipped; Castiel turns his back without a word and returns to watching the house. Aziraphale feels rather put out. It really is terribly rude to start ignoring one's visitors right in the middle of a conversation. He had expected the other angel to have better manners. He frowns, and is about to try and get his attention again when he sees the scars. They aren't obvious, or he would have noticed them before, but they are harsh and ugly, marring the delicate flesh of his wings. Punishment scars. He is well aware that Heaven's punishments for disobedience have been growing worse – indeed he's lucky not to have suffered it himself, he knows that – but he's never actually seen the results before. It isn't pleasant.

"Castiel," he says softly. "How did you disobey?"

The angel tenses almost imperceptibly, and pulls his wings in to his body as tight as they will go. "It is immaterial," he replies coldly. "I was foolish. I should not have questioned Father's will, or the rightness of what we are doing here."

Aziraphale would give anything to be able to help him, but these scars, both mental and physical, will not fade. That's rather the point. The scars are a mark of shame for the rest of the Host to see. It's no wonder Castiel is acting like this, with the things that have been done to him in the name of... what? What is going on here?

He doesn't want to make Castiel talk when his wounds must still be so fresh, but knowing what Heaven is doing is _important_. He can see that now, there is something very wrong undercutting all this, it's no wonder Lucifer was interested. He sidesteps the topic for now.

"I heard Uriel was on Earth as well," he begins cautiously.

"He was." Past tense, the words drop like stones into the silent night. Castiel still doesn't look at him. "He is dead."

"What?" He can't quite process it, at first. Death is almost a foreign concept to angels; discorporation doesn't count, and it's not easy to kill them. But an Archangel, one of the Seven, God's favoured children... This sort of thing just _doesn't happen_. Not since the war... Not _ever_, for one of Heaven's Generals. And on top of what he was told about Anael... "But... how?"

"He disobeyed. Anna- Anael's blade made the stroke, but it was our Father's will."

Aziraphale rather feels like he needs to sit down. A cup of tea, that's what he needs. Some biscuits. Something to take his mind off... _this_. It's unbelievable, it's so very, very wrong, he can't... Did Lucifer _know_ this, when he sent him off on this mission? Is this some barbed punishment of his, to have him find out these things in this way? He sinks down onto the hood of one of the rusting cars packed into the scrap-yard, burying his face in his hands. It's not even as if he ever had any particular fondness for Uriel, but he was still one of his brothers, one of the brightest, one of the firstborn. And yet Castiel seems not to care. Unless that's just the re-education working on him

"But, wait," he says, realising something. "You said Anael? I thought she had Fallen?"

"She had. She regained her Grace."

Aziraphale runs one hand through his hair, trying to get his whirling thoughts under some measure of control. He needs to talk to Crowley. He needs to work out the bigger picture here. "I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry, I have to go."

As he takes flight, he's not even sure if Castiel notices him leave.

* * *

><p><strong>5.<strong>

Crowley has been lounging around James' rather nice home for three days now, and he still hasn't managed to get the details on the big plan out of him. This is not to say he hasn't found out a lot – as it turns out, James is working for the being passing itself off as Lilith, although of course he isn't aware that she is an imposter. He's acting undeniably smug with the power of knowledge and being in someone's inner circle for once, even though Crowley hasn't let on exactly how much he doesn't know. At least James wears his smugness well. Crowley taught him well, back in the day. They are quite similar, in many ways. It's just that that particular emotion is not very helpful right now.

So far he has managed to discover the following, all without admitting he didn't know in the first place of course; that Azazel, fallen angel of Nephilim fame had been going around feeding his blood to children from seriously heavy-duty vessel bloodlines, and is now permanently out of commission due to a head-shot from the infamous – and Crowley had thought up till now, mythical – Colt; that one of those kids had been the brother of the Righteous Man; that the fake-Lilith is working on breaking the 66 seals, though he's not entirely clear on what those are; and that the last of these is due to be broken in four days, the day after Lucifer's deadline runs due. The problem now is getting any more out of him without being too obvious about it. Idle gossip is one thing, but this stuff is the big-time. Crowley can't say he didn't know about it and keep any kind of credibility.

In the mean time, he has to put up with a steady diet of scotch, which he has never been very keen on, a distinct lack of decent food, and an inexorable loop of Nazi rallies, genocide, and snuff porn on a TV which is half a bloody inch bigger than the one in his own apartment. It's all very tiresome and not at all to his taste. He sometimes wishes the damn camera hadn't been invented. Still, without it, he would never have come up with reality TV. He's very proud of reality TV.

"Tell me some more about this Righteous Man," he says, looking over his shoulder to make sure James isn't watching too closely when he transforms the whiskey into a rather nice white wine. "I still can't quite believe he lasted thirty years at _Alistair's_ hands."

"It is an extraordinary achievement," James smirks, turning the music down. "But after he broke, now, _that_ was glorious. He has a talent for it, a certain... imagination. Normally they're so squeamish about the first couple, they have to be reminded why they got off the rack in the first place, but not Winchester. Alistair started him off on some real bastards, I must admit, but even so, he just dug right in." He makes a rather illustrative gesture. "The 'Best Of' Tapes were a real hit downstairs. I'd let you borrow my set, but I think I lent them to Ishtar."

"So much for the righteousness of the Righteous Man." Crowley smirks, fanning himself with the edge of one wing. James likes to keep his house hot – as Hell, if you'll pardon the cliché – not to mention his protégé has always been fascinated by his wings. It's a popular kink in ex-humans. But of course, they _are_ demons, so the appeal is more in the delicious possibilities for violence that can be inflicted on their more tender parts. His friend is watching them right now with a kind of awe and hunger; obviously he's thinking about it. Crowley might worry if he thought the lesser demon was actually capable of taking him in a fight, sexual or otherwise, but they've proved in the past that's not so. He stretches out the pinions so the butter-gold feathers gleam in the light of the fire.

"Satan knows, the angels don't seem to mind what he did down there," James says, sounding mildly distracted.

"Castiel and Uriel. They're pulling out all the stops up there if they're sending down one of the Seven."

"A dead Archangel now," James says, with a small laugh, sipping his scotch. Crowley can't prevent surprise and shock showing on his face for a moment before he manages to suppress it. But clearly he can't ask for more details, this is obviously one of those things he should have known. He needs to talk to Aziraphale about this. That kind of casualty... it can't have gone unnoticed in the Silver City.

"Is Lilith letting you help with the final seal?" he asks instead. His protégé shakes his head.

"Ruby's with Sam Winchester, more's the pity." He sighs. "I would have loved to be the one feeding him my blood, though I doubt he'd be so keen on the violent sex from me." His lips quirk in a wry smile. "No, I'm just sitting here on the sidelines, guarding the Colt."

"Oh, so you're the one who has it," Crowley says, raising an eyebrow, though his thoughts are whirling behind his otherwise calm facade. He hadn't mentioned blood before, or not in the present tense, and that... well, that's just dangerous. It might not be as potent as Azazel's blood, not being of angelic origin, but it's still edging dangerously close to Nephelim territory. What are these guys playing at?

James meanwhile is smug with pride. And he's probably justified, considering Crowley had thought the gun wasn't real not too long ago. "Yes, I have it," he says. "Would you like to take a look?"

Crowley waves him off. "Perhaps later." He gives his friend a long look, yellow eyes glinting. "Anyway James, it's crass to boast," he says, poking fun lightly. James is about to reply when they both feel a presence touch against the angel-proof wards that mark the edges of the demon's property, and it's one which he knows. Aziraphale. Handy, since he does need to talk to him, but he's not sure why his angel came looking for him. They're going to meet up in a few days anyway.

James is just starting to get up. "Won't be a moment Anthony," he says cheerfully. "I've got a nice, agonising set of Enochian curses I've been saving up for an opportunity like this." His smile is cheerful and not a little bloodthirsty. Crowley is not pleased.

"No, no, I'll deal with it," he says hastily, springing to his feet. "Wouldn't want you to waste your resources when I can deal with the problem for you. I could do with the taste of angel on my tongue anyway. It's been a while." He grins, enjoying the innuendo. He knows his friend will take it to mean blood, not other, more pleasant, substances.

James looks disappointed, but he's not about to protest. "Guests first," he says graciously. "I'll watch."

Crowley tuts mock-anxiously. "You're possessing that body, James, and I would hate for you to lose the meat-suit if things get out of hand. You've had it for long enough that it must hold some sentimental value, at least."

James sits back down and gestures to the door languidly. "Oh, go ahead then."

Crowley smiles at him. "Don't worry, I'll let you get your chance next time."

* * *

><p><strong>6.<strong>

Lucifer has been keeping a careful eye on Creation since Yahweh left, and without the Name to anchor reality, the instability is continuing to get worse. He has not yet decided what, if anything, he is going to do about it. The collapse of this Creation will not affect his own realm, and he does not owe anything to it or the beings that inhabit it. He may yet open his doors and let the refugees flee to him, but it is a possibility that will wait for him to consider. His generosity is not endless, and the disadvantages of doing so may outweigh the meagre benefits. If they wish to blame anyone, blame his Father.

In the meantime, he only intends to prevent any other beings from taking Yahweh's throne and assuming the vacuum of power that has been left behind. The only two who have the right to sit upon it are Michael and himself, and as his brother refuses it, and he could only take it with a fight he judges not worth the cost, it must remain empty. If they cannot have it, certainly no-one else will.

But for now he has the current problem to deal with. The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley are due to report back to him soon, after which he is sure that any real threat can be taken care of swiftly by himself or with Michael's aid, if it is serious. Not that he is overconfident – he has learnt after the confrontation with the Titans that this would be a mistake – but he knows the limits of his own abilities, and the same trick never works twice.

The wards on Aziraphale's bookshop have been strengthened since his last visit, as he expected, but he is not so easily kept out. He makes himself at home in the back room, reclining on a frankly hideous tartan couch, and settles down to wait. Patience comes easily to immortals as ancient as he; indeed, for most of them, it is being required to act quickly in the face of a threat that poses a problem. In contrast, fledglings and the like have no patience at all.

The Morningstar spends several hours in silence and peaceful contemplation, watching the metaphysical fabric of the surrounding area of the city carelessly unravelling without the Name to hold it together. It is not yet at a stage where there is cause to worry, but he wouldn't give it more than five years, and that at a stretch. It is helped a little by the slight stabilising effect of Aziraphale's own presence, which has worked its way into the warp and weft of reality after so many centuries. Angels still possess something of the divine Essence about them.

When Aziraphale eventually returns, he brings Crowley with him, and he has a general aura of worry and disturbance about him that does not seem to be solely due to Lucifer's presence. The pair notice him as soon as they arrive, fluttering through space-time on silent wings, and are immediately wary. Aziraphale bustles about making tea, which the Morningstar suspects is an anti-stress mechanism, while Crowley leans against the doorframe and keeps a careful eye on him. Their fear and distrust amuses him slightly. While he would think them fools if they actually trusted him, he holds no particular malice towards them. He would not have them come to harm while they are still useful to him.

Aziraphale puts a tray down on the table and sits down on the equally fashion-challenged, equally tartan sofa opposite him. There are three cups on the tray, a bowl of sugar cubes and a packet of chocolate chip cookies from Mark's & Spencer's. The angel has become painfully native, Lucifer notes, with a sort of internal sigh. There is something crass about stooping to such a human level. Blending in is all very well if one intends to make a permanent habitation on Earth, but there are lines one really ought not cross. Or at the very least, try to keep some sense of _style_. Crowley seems to manage.

"What did you discover?" he asks, ignoring the cup of tea Aziraphale leaves by his elbow, balancing miraculously in a precarious position on the arm of the couch.

Aziraphale sighs. "Uriel is dead," he says quietly, looking at the floor and clutching his teacup. "and Anael has Fallen, or something like it. Apparently he disobeyed somehow, and so she killed him. But the whole thing is being hushed up." He glances up with unmistakable anger. "No-one I spoke to even _knew_ one of the Seven was _dead_. Only Castiel, and only because he was working with him!"

Lucifer has to confess he's surprised at this news. He would have thought Michael would have informed him of something so severe, no matter how bad the enmity is between them. After all, these are his brothers in rank, the firstborn. Family, even if he holds no particular love for them. Coming as it does so close to the Seals breaking, it seems very unlikely the two occurrences are not related, and whatever the link, this business becomes more worrying the further he looks into it.

"And what of Castiel?" he asks.

"Watching over the Righteous Man and his brother." The angel looks uneasy. "I know there's a prophecy about those humans, but I really can't think what it is, and I'm afraid I've not had the chance to look it up yet."

"Prophecies are poisonous things in any case," Lucifer says, "but I am aware of this one, as it used to pertain to me. Before I left Hell, there were six hundred Seals keeping me in. In one of the possible paths that can be taken to the Apocalypse, sixty-six of them must be broken to free me and set events in action. The Righteous Man breaks the first Seal by himself being broken in Hell, and his brother must break the last by surrendering to his birthright, and doing evil though meaning good."

"So someone's trying to kick-start the Apocalypse again?" Crowley asks. "Well that's just great." He's taken a cup of tea in an attempt to look nonchalant, with limited success, judging by the way the china is starting to crack in his grip.

"Without my presence in Hell, it would no longer work," Lucifer says. "And I doubt Remiel and Dumas will allow the gates of Hell to open, Seals or no Seals."

Crowley shrugs and gulps his tea. "I know a guy who's working for this fake-Lilith. He said they've got a demon – ex-human – feeding the younger brother her blood, something about Azazel and the fact he's a heavy-duty vessel. I'm guessing that has something to do with his birthright?"

"Yes; corruption through blood. It isn't necessary for him to be a vessel, but it would make it easier for his body to accept the changes." It makes things a little clearer, but only to show there must be angelic influence somewhere in all this. As if whatever is going on in Heaven didn't prove that.

"He wouldn't tell me what their endgame was, and I couldn't ask without showing I didn't know what he was on about," Crowley says. "But they're planning on breaking the final Seal tomorrow night at St Mary's Convent, in Ilchester, Maryland, if you're planning on stopping them from finishing the job."

"It would be wise to do so," the Morningstar says. He doesn't like the picture which is beginning to emerge in his mind, but without knowing who Lilith really is, or what exactly she is trying to achieve, he can't be sure of anything. Turning back to Aziraphale he asks, "What did Castiel tell you of Heaven's plans to stop the last Seal breaking?"

"He refused to speak to me without orders," Aziraphale says, fidgeting. "I think... he said he had disobeyed recently, and he had punishment scars on his wings..." He gestures vaguely. "I doubt he'll do anything but follow the absolute letter of the law from now on."

Pain being about the only thing that _would_ still a Third Sphere's tongue, Lucifer thinks irritably. Inconvenient. He has to wonder what orders the angel had thought so abhorrent that it would risk punishment. "It would be inadvisable to allow the final Seal to break," he says, after some thought. "And we cannot rely on Heaven to prevent it without knowing precisely what they mean to do, if anything. It is clear I will have to take action myself." He doesn't anticipate running into any difficulties there.

"We're coming with you," Aziraphale says firmly, putting his cup down and fixing his gaze on Lucifer. Crowley makes an aborted little movement forwards in surprise before he collects himself.

"What?" he says, low and angry. "_Angel_!"

"I want to know what's going on," Aziraphale tells him, turning to the demon, his tone steely. "Uriel is dead, and I want to know why. I want to know why it's being kept secret. I want to know what's so important."

Lucifer watches with a certain amusement as Aziraphale and Crowley have a silent contest of wills, enacted solely through glaring at each other. As long as they don't get in his way, he couldn't care less what they choose to do. As expected, the angel wins the argument, though Crowley doesn't look happy about it.

"I suppose there's no harm in it," he says finally, in as magnanimous a fashion as he can manage.

"Very well," Lucifer says, standing. "We should leave at once. I would prefer to be there in plenty of time." He spreads his wings and fixes the Name of the location in his mind, and with a flick of power and Grace, reality bends around them and they take flight.

* * *

><p><strong>7.<strong>

He should have known better than to assume this was over, Crowley thinks miserably. It had been quite late in London, but here the sun is still shining, and it glints brilliantly from Lucifer's feathers before he folds them away. It is both beautiful and fearsome, and it makes him want to shiver. He should have stayed away, but he couldn't let Aziraphale come alone. The angel's sense of self-preservation can be a bit dodgy at times, and it's not as if the Morningstar will give a damn one way or another if he finds his way into trouble. No, Crowley had no choice but to come and keep an eye on him.

Lucifer looks at the convent, calm and assessing. It's not that old a building, and it looks in every way completely dull and normal, but there is... something.

"Blood," the Morningstar says, the word rolling off his tongue thick and heavy. "Old blood. Virgin sacrifices. This is the place."

"I don't sense anything off about it," Aziraphale says sceptically, and adds under his breath, "but I suppose you'd know better than I." _Um, yes,_ Crowley would like very much to hiss at him,_ because he's the bloody_ devil._ What the bloody Hell are you playing at angel? Don't be sarcastic at him you idiot!_ He settles for glaring at him and hoping Lucifer won't take any offence. He's not stupid enough to think he didn't overhear it.

The Morningstar ignores him, thankfully, and stalks over to the entrance, running his hands over the varnished wooden door. Crowley fidgets. The door swings open soundlessly, and he has to hurry forwards to follow Lucifer inside, Aziraphale right behind him. The essential holiness of the convent tingles on his skin, but the devil was right, there is a darker taint underneath it all, and getting stronger the further in they go. Something bloody. Something demonic.

Aziraphale looks about uneasily, and puts a hand out to touch Crowley's shoulder and pull them back a bit, away from Lucifer. "I can't feel it," he says quietly. "What is it?"

"You wouldn't," Crowley whispers back. "Your lot aren't very in tune to blood magic. It's like... a feeling of darkness underneath the consecrated earth. Lucifer was right, someone's been playing around with some very powerful, very nasty black magic in here. Some years ago, but it hasn't faded all that much. So... just take my word for it that the devil knows what he's talking about, okay angel. Because you keep bloody _provoking_ him, could you just be nice so he doesn't decide to _kill you_."

The angel has the grace to look a little ashamed of himself as he damn well ought to, Crowley thinks a little viciously. "I'm sorry Crowley," he says quietly, "I don't really mean to you know, it's just... it's getting to me, all this... Uriel and Anael... and I just can't help but wonder if he didn't know already. It's hard to believe he wouldn't, and..." Aziraphale trails off. Crowley can sympathise. He's not going to suddenly start caring about the lot Up There just because a silly Archangel went and got himself killed, but once, a long time ago, they meant something to him. To all the Host. It's no surprise that Aziraphale isn't taking it well.

"I know," he says. "But you can't go lashing out at _him_, it's too risky. I don't want to see you get... for anything to happen," he finishes lamely. They have fallen behind a bit now, and Lucifer has gone on through another pair of doors at the end of the corridor. The room beyond, the chapel, is where the feeling of darkness is concentrated. Innocent blood was spilt there. Crowley is personally quite content to wait for him to get back from out here. He sneers at a saccharine statue of an angel standing nearby. "I'll be pleased when we can get out of this place. Most of it is still annoyingly holy."

It's about five or ten minutes before the Morningstar reappears. Crowley honestly can't tell whether he is pleased with what he found or not. Lucifer is very good at not giving anything away, and he doesn't exactly tend to keep people informed about his plans. It's very much on a need to know basis.

"Perhaps it is for the best that you came with me," Lucifer says. "It seems the best chance we have of stopping this is to locate the Righteous Man's brother, and prevent him from coming here at all. Crowley, I trust you will be able to find him?"

"Of course," the demon replies with a weak grin.

"As for you Aziraphale, since you have spoken with Castiel once already, you should be able to find him again. If he is still assigned to protect the Righteous Man, you may be able talk to the human and find out how much Heaven has told him."

Aziraphale looks at him with suspicion. "And you? What will you be doing?"

"Taking care of the imposter when she arrives." Lucifer holds up his hand to stop them as they turn to leave. "But first, I need to know everything you discovered this past week. Every detail. Leave nothing out."

* * *

><p>Lucifer lets them leave once he's satisfied with their stories. Crowley is glad to be able to get out of there, or rather, get away from <em>him<em>. It makes him nervous and twitchy, and he just hopes they can get everything sorted out tonight so he and Aziraphale can go home and go back to the normal routine. Dinner at the Ritz and fucking in Crowley's appropriately decadent bed. First things first though, he has a human to find.

Normally demons don't have too much call for locating specific humans. If there's a deal going down, the human usually finds them. However, as with most relatively simple objects, for beings lacking the knowledge or the power to hide themselves all that is needed is their true Name. In this case, Samuel Winchester. Not to mention this human has a significant amount of demon blood in him, which ought to make him light up like a star going supernova in the fabric of reality. He hovers in mid-air some miles above the convent and spreads his sense out, searching. The human must be close, if Ruby is intending to bring him here tonight for the breaking of the final Seal.

And yet... there is nothing. No more than the usual background hum of humans going about their daily lives, the thin threads of good deeds and evil ones running like those sped up videos of traffic at night, clustered around the nearby town. No demons, anywhere.

It doesn't make sense. He _ought_ to be able to see the human somewhere. The only thing he can think of is that someone is working to conceal Winchester from supernatural sight, someone who knows what they're doing. _Ruby_, he thinks angrily. It must be her, that's the only possibility. James had mentioned she was once a witch. Perhaps he should have expected it; the angels may very well be looking for the human too. But what now? Lucifer is _not_ going to be happy if he fails.

He circles the area, gliding on silent wings, but eventually he has to admit defeat. He'll have to resort to more prosaic methods than this. There are only so many roads leading to St Mary's, and now he knows to look for an absence of power, instead of an accumulation of it. When they go past, he'll be waiting.

* * *

><p>Aziraphale is trying to keep calm. It's not easy. He's tense and fretful after the day's events, though he thinks it's understandable, and while he is trying to keep his emotions in check until a more appropriate time, a certain amount is leaking through. If it wasn't, he would never have been so snappish at Lucifer. Crowley is right, he needs to keep his mind on what they are trying to achieve here. He can mourn later.<p>

Having found Castiel once already, Aziraphale is familiar with him, with the way his presence stretches the world as all angels do, like stars wrapping time and space around themselves, creating the illusion of gravity. Locating him is not a task which most younger angels would find possible, but he is old and fairly powerful. He tracks the other angel to a warehouse in Van Nuys. The Righteous Man, Dean Winchester, is not with him.

Inside the warehouse is a small room, a pocket of reality larger inside than out, done up to look like a stately home, though it is made of thin, malleable stuff. It clearly isn't meant to serve any permanent function, though he can't for the life of him imagine what they _are_ going to use it for.

"Castiel," he says, greeting his brother as he lands inside. "Nice to see you again."

"Brother," Castiel says flatly, looking less than impressed, "why are you here? Do you have orders regarding the final Seal?"

It would be easy to lie, Aziraphale thinks. After everything that's been done to him, Castiel will have been conditioned to accept the word of his brothers as Gospel, to avoid questions, to avoid doubt. If he said he had orders to talk to Dean Winchester, Castiel would take him to the man. But... it would be taking advantage. He feels a little dirty for even thinking of it. He shakes his head.

"No," he says. "I just wanted to know how things are progressing."

"I don't know why you persist in doing this brother," Castiel says, cocking his head to one side in mild confusion. "Why do you continue to come to me without orders to do so? Do you not have tasks of your own?"

"I'm just...curious," Aziraphale says. "This is no small matter, and I..."

"Angels are not meant to be curious." There is a harder edge in Castiel's tone now. "We are agents of Fate and our Father's Will. To be curious is too close to questioning."

Aziraphale sighs. "Never mind Castiel," he says. "I'm sorry. I won't bother you again."

He leaves quickly. It pains him to see what's been done to one of his brothers, and anyway, there's nothing for him there. Lucifer wants information, he always wants information, so he'll have to keep searching for this Righteous Man. Lucifer can go bugger himself, he thinks, with a certain degree of righteous anger.

* * *

><p>The first few of the imposter's servants arrive early, around eight in the evening. They come alone, one by one, lesser demons all, once-human. They are excited and tense with anticipation, obvious even from Lucifer's distant vantage point on the outskirts of the convent's grounds. There is no sign of the supposed woman herself however, so for now he is content to watch. Let them do as they will; compared to him they are no more than flies to be swatted.<p>

The gate that the Seals holds closed is stretched thin by now, barely tethered by the final, the sixty-sixth. It is very specific in its requirements, much more so than any other, and apart from the younger Winchester brother, it requires the willing sacrifice of an immortal, one with a certain level of age and power. He wonders if who or whatever this Lilith really is will use herself, or whether she has another in mind. If so, there is no sign of them yet. It doesn't matter though. He has no intention of letting the proceedings even get to that point.

With only a few hours to go before midnight, she finally arrives. If he had any doubts before, they are immediately swept aside; she is nothing like the real Lilith. There is nothing even faintly human about her, as Lilith once was. No, this is something that feels somewhat familiar, if a rather less Hell-tainted than he is used to – fallen angel. It makes sense; Crowley had mentioned Azazel's involvement, and this is another of his kind. It appears this plan is the work of the Grigori.  
>In some ways, this is a good thing. He is perfectly capable of dealing with one angel, fallen or no, but equally, he still does not know what they plan to achieve with this whole enterprise. The Grigori are notoriously sly, and whatever they intend will not be anything simple. Still, he will get his answers soon enough.<p>

Lucifer enters the building through a side door, his footsteps making no sound at all on the hard stone floor. The lesser demons are all clustered in the corridor leading to the chapel, and the Grigori is with them, no doubt making preparations for the arrival of Samuel Winchester and his demon companion. If Crowley has done his job, they are due to be disappointed. He heads in the general direction of the chapel, intending to confront the fallen angel. In this case, the proper application of force seems most appropriate. He doesn't see the trap until he has stepped into it.

In hindsight, he should have anticipated something of the sort as soon as he knew he had run up against one of the Grigori. It seems they certainly expected his own presence. In fairness, this is a very old, very rare, Enochian warding circle, written on the stone with a demon's fresh blood and the angel's tainted Grace, but the Watchers have always been well read and well prepared ever since Gabriel caught them unawares and slaughtered their children.

Unwilling to compromise his own dignity and pride, Lucifer stands straight and waits impassively for the fallen angel to come and gloat at him. He sincerely doubts she will pass up _that_ opportunity. It is not every day one can claim they caught the Morningstar off guard. Nor can she risk leaving him here unattended for too long; the trap will not keep him for long. He can work his way out of it eventually. Still, he may learn something from her if she can be tricked into monologuing.

As he is expecting, she is smiling widely when she appears, alone, tattered Grace squeezed into a vessel as her followers are forced to do, delight dancing over her face. Now he can see her more closely, he believes he can put a name to her.

"Sariel," he says calmly, watching her prance around the borders of the circle.

"Oh, poor Lucifer," she coos mockingly. "Not so smart now, Lightbringer. Did you think we hadn't _planned_ on having you discover us here? No, you are very important to the mission. The key, you might say."

"Well I'd hate to miss the occasion," he replies smoothly, keeping his eyes on her while he tests the edges of the trap with his Grace. "Although I hardly think you can say you had any hand in bringing me here."

"No?" she says, stopping in front of him, her vessel's pose languid and what would be sensual in a human. "You don't think those little nobodies were wandering around your territory by accident do you? Zachariah wants this as much as we do; we've been working towards the same ends all along."

Now this _is_ surprising, and he finds it particularly galling to think he has been outwitted in any way by the kind of weak-minded and unimaginative creature the youngest of the Seven always was. It makes sense though. If they can channel his presence here so close to the breaking of the final Seal, it is possible that they could set off the path to the Apocalypse. Novel, but possible. He can't help but be irritated with himself for not seeing this sooner, not that he's going to show that to the Grigori of course. Sariel winks at him.

"But now you're here," she says. "We can get on with it. We're all here for a very special occasion you know; your glorious ascension from the Pit, and the beginning of the end of the world."

"What do you hope to achieve?" he asks quietly. "I have no intentions of going along with your Apocalypse. Do not think you can keep me here any longer than this night. Even if your ritual sets those events in motion, you will never take the throne of Heaven."

"Oh don't worry." She laughs. "We're not foolish. But Lucifer _will_ rise, one way or another. We've been planning on this ever since we heard the cancerous stain that called itself God abandoned his children and this world." She draws a bloodied scrap of linen from the breast of her white dress and drapes it over the cardinal sigil holding the circle which encloses him. Next is a phial of blood, pungent with malignant power. Sariel manifests her wings and selects a single dusky slate-grey feather, pulling it without a wince. Lucifer takes half a step forward in alarm. He has an unpleasant idea of where this is going, and it only becomes more concrete as she dips the quill in the blood and starts to write more Enochian on and around the cloth. He is still trapped though, and he can do nothing to stop her. She has his blood, dabbed onto the handkerchief months ago in Effrul to trick the Throne Amenadiel, the culmination of the last time someone had him at such a disadvantage. It seems this has always been their plan; everything was leading up to this. She is going to steal his Name.

Lucifer does not give her the satisfaction of his rage. This is not the first time someone has drained his Grace, and woe to the one who believes his teeth drawn by it. He took back his power before, and he will do so again. He has one advantage that he did not have before – he knows what she is doing, and what she must therefore be intending to do in the future, and he can work with that. Before, when Izanami trapped his Grace inside two poisoned pinions and stole them while his enemies had him burn, he was caught unawares. Not this time.

He focuses his mind on his Grace, fierce and massive, and forces it down inside him, into the feathers of his wings to lock as much of it away as he can before the ritual can take hold of it and leech it out of him. It pleases him to use something which hurt him before to his advantage now. He can feel the first tugs of the old magic starting already. It is an itch that quickly grows into pain, ripping and tearing at him like an animal devouring flesh. He feels the unfamiliar taste of his own blood in his mouth, sharp and alien. His vision blurs, and he locks gazes with the Grigori. He refuses to cry out. She would enjoy that, he knows.

Then, with a final pull so fierce it sends him to his knees, what Grace he did not manage to hide is torn from him, to be given with his Name to whatever avatar they wish to become him. It is finished. For now.


	2. Chapter 2

**8.**

Crowley is waiting by the side of the road, invisible to human eyes, when he feels the car whip by. He recognises it more by the aura of nothingness it projects around it, a kind of black hole of supernatural energy that was preventing him finding it before. Hex bags, he's sure of it. He takes wing and follows it slowly, stretching out a flight that is normally instantaneous by human standards, examining the vehicle with normal sight. If he could, he would stop them right here, but Ruby has clearly thought of that possibility. The witch magic prevents his powers from doing anything. He can't make the engine cut out, or cause one of the tires to blow out, or forcibly throw on the brakes. He can't do anything except follow them.

They are perhaps five minutes away from the convent at the speed the car is travelling, and he banks low over it to take a closer look. They're going along at some considerable speed, and he can see two people barely visible through the windscreen. A man; the brother, and a woman; the demon Ruby.

He keeps a steady pace with them until they pull up at the convent, then lands in the ornamental trees at the rim of the grounds, being careful to remain unseen. He's not sure what he would be able to do to stop Winchester now that wouldn't get the attention of Ruby and the unknown number of other demons waiting inside the building. Lucifer is really not going to be pleased with him, Crowley thinks with a slight shudder. But there was really nothing he could have done; they were expecting supernatural influence, and they're here now anyway. He'd better go find the Morningstar and tell him. It's not exactly something he's looking forward to.

Crowley slips into the convent through the already open side door, and immediately his skin crawls with the heavy taint of magic in the air. Enochian blood ritual, he thinks, analysing it. Too soon for it to be the Seal, and it's not Lucifer's style. He has absolutely no idea what they've been doing, but it's not going to be good. His luck doesn't work like that. He'd better be really damn careful not to step into something nasty by mistake. He creeps along the corridor slowly, turns a corner, and is suddenly face to face with the devil. He looks like shit. He has his back slumped against the wall, and there's blood trickling from his nose.

"Lord Lucif-" he starts to say, but his throat suddenly closes around the word, and he chokes on it.

"You won't be able to say it," the Morningstar tells him, and spits out a mouthful of blood. "She stole my Name."

Crowley gapes at him. "What? ...I don't understand, _how?_"

"There's no time," he begins, and his gaze slide to a point over Crowley's shoulder. Crowley turns round in time to see Aziraphale land, wings all aquiver.

"The Righteous Man is here, he's trying to stop his brother from breaking the Seal," he says quickly, agitated.

"It's a little late for that," Luci- the devil says. "He and his brother are in the chapel. You two need to get them out of there. There should be an aircraft passing overhead where you can drop them. I'll meet you back here in two days."

"Wait, what?" the angel says, finally noticing the state the devil is in, but he has already left, slipping through an opening in reality that Crowley suspects is one of the gateways to his own new Creation. He looks over at Aziraphale.

"I guess we'd better do as he says."

* * *

><p>After the Winchester brothers have been dropped off on the plane, Aziraphale and Crowley finally have a chance to rest and to gather their thoughts. It doesn't seem appropriate to head home, even if the familiar surroundings would be comfortable and certainly reassuring, when neither of them have any idea what the devil is likely to ask them to do after this. Aziraphale is still not even entirely clear on what happened in the convent mere hours before. They settle into a room in a nearby hotel, where the receptionist soon has a sudden memory of having booked them in.<p>

Crowley paces up and down in front of the window, looking out into the darkness of the night. His movements show the jerky quality Aziraphale recognises as the product of nervousness. "We should never have come with him," he says softly to the air at large. "This has all gone wrong, I mean, _really_ wrong angel."

"Why don't you sit down and explain what happened my dear?" Aziraphale says, patting the space on the bed next to him. "Then things will be a bit clearer and we can decide what to do next."

"All right." Crowley sighs, and comes over to flop down next to him, sprawling bonelessly on the mattress. "Though I don't know all of it. You got there not long after I did."

"Well he must have told you how they managed to hurt him?"

"Yes," Crowley says, a mixture of grumpy and agitated. "Not that I know _how_ whoever is behind this managed to pull it off, but he said they stole his Name."

"Oh." Aziraphale's not sure what to think. Bad enough that someone managed to take him unawares, he doesn't like to think how dangerous Lilith must be to steal the true Name of the devil himself. "Well." There doesn't seem to be much else he can say to a revelation like that.

"Yeah." Crowley breaths out in a long, slow sigh. "I guess maybe he'll tell us what happened in a couple of days."

There's an uncomfortable silence that stretches out for too long. It's at times like these that Aziraphale envies humans their ability for sleep. It would be nice to slip away, to be able to put this aside for a while. But he wouldn't know how; he's never really tried it, not properly, and anyway they _do_ need to discuss the night's events.

"So," he says. "What stopped you from getting to Samuel?"

Crowley makes a frustrated noise. "Only that bloody demon he's been hanging around with. I told you about her didn't I; Ruby. Hex bags everywhere. And what about you angel? What happened while you were off chatting with Castiel? You certainly arrived in enough of a hurry."

"Yes, well, that didn't go very well either," Aziraphale admits, with a degree of embarrassment. "Castiel wouldn't say anything, of course, so I left to try and find the Righteous Man. I thought he might be at the house where Castiel had been standing guard, the last time, you recall I told you. And the moment I got there, the boy was whisked off to a little pocket of false-space, and by none other than Zachariah, if I am not very much mistaken." He shrugs. "I really have no idea what their plan was, to be honest with you my dear. They didn't seem to be too worried about the final Seal at all."

"But you said Winchester was at the convent," Crowley says, half sitting up on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Castiel took him there. I can only assume it was against orders. He's... he's dead now." It's another blow on top of the much greater ones from before, but it cements his realisation that something is wrong in Heaven. Zachariah seems to be treating the lives of Anael's garrison far too lightly. Ever since God disappeared from the Primum Mobile there have been rumours flying that he had left for good this time, or that he was dead. He had never paid them much mind, but perhaps others have. Perhaps Zachariah and Uriel had given up hope.

"This is bloody insane, you know that angel," Crowley says. "I need a drink."

Aziraphale nods. On occasions like this, there is little else to do _but_ get drunk.

It's easy enough to miracle up a couple of bottles of good wine, and easier still to drink them and allow them to do their work. It helps, it really does, and they end the night wrapped around each other in the bed. Of course, in the morning, Crowley won't admit he ever does anything as soppy as cuddling, but Aziraphale can still take comfort in it in the here and now.

* * *

><p>Two days later, as agreed, they meet the devil at St Mary's. The Morningstar is looking back to his old self, Crowley thinks, although there is something a little muted about his presence. He wonders just how much power was lost along with his Name. Lucifer; Lightbringer... the stuff of stars has always been his element, his Grace flame. So much of that will now belong to whoever has taken on the Name. It must be a substantial amount.<p>

"We have work to do," are the first words out of the devil's mouth.

"Now wait," Aziraphale says with a frown. "Aren't you at least going to tell us what happened in there? We don't even know who we're going up against."

The devil gives the pair of them a look that nearly makes Crowley take a step back, but he answers the question anyway. "This plan is the work of the Grigori. Lilith was the one called Sariel; she is dead now. Her sacrifice was one of the vital elements in the breaking of the final Seal. She evidently had knowledge of a specific, ancient, and – I thought – lost, Enochian warding circle which trapped me for long enough to perform the ritual to steal my Name. Be sure that I have no intention of letting this state of affairs continue."

Shit, Crowley thinks miserably. The Watchers. All the self-righteousness of angels, all the vices and forbidden knowledge of demons. And the devil wants them to get mixed up in _that_?

"Judging from what happened that night, Samyaza most likely has my Name now," the Morningstar continues. "No doubt with Yahweh gone Heaven believes the time of the Apocalypse is upon us. This would not be the first time they have hastened a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"So He really is gone then?" Aziraphale says quietly. "I'd heard, of course... Is it... for good?"

"Yes," the devil says. "And I have no intention of letting anyone take his place if it is not Michael or myself."

"So that's what the Grigori are aiming for?" Crowley asks. "To take His Throne?"

"In all likelihood that is their end-game."

"But you have a plan to stop them?"

"Of course," the devil says, with a slight smile that, truth be told, doesn't exactly put Crowley's mind at rest.

"And I suppose you need us for this," Aziraphale says, too defiantly for Crowley's taste. Bloody Manchester, this is going to be Hell if they keep this up the whole time. He doesn't fancy trying to be mediator between the devil and an oh-so-stubborn angel. "Where's Michael in all this? I'd think he might have something to say about what Zachariah's doing."

"That _is_ the question, isn't it," the Morningstar says, a little irritably.

"So you don't know?"

"I'm sure he'll turn up when he's finished sulking." The devil narrows his eyes. "In the meantime, there are things which need to be done, most of which I can do by myself. However, the two of you need to keep an eye on the Winchesters while I do so."

"We'd be glad to," Crowley says quickly, cutting off any snide comments Aziraphale may have on the topic of babysitting duty. "In fact, I think we should start now."

"Wait a minute," Aziraphale cuts in. "Why are they so important?"

"Prophecy. Look it up."

"I thought you didn't believe in prophecy."

Crowley thinks the devil would be rolling his eyes if it wasn't beneath him to do so. "Samyaza does, and this is a prophesied path he's locked himself into. In fact, I understand it even has its own Prophet. You might want to look into that while you're at it."

The mention of books does wonders for Aziraphale's mood. "Oh well, that _will_ be interesting," he says happily. Crowley mutters something rude under his breath.

"Any more questions?" the Morningstar says, in a way that suggests the answer had better be no.

"Just the one," Aziraphale says. "I was just wondering what... we were supposed to call you, now... you know..."

The devils face assumes a slightly bitter aspect. "It will have to be my first," he says, "from before the Fall. Samael."

He leaves then, wings spreading like a hawk's, their gold seeming a little dulled from before.

"Well," Aziraphale says, once the devil is gone, turning to Crowley with a determined expression. "We'd better get started." Crowley wonders how he keeps getting tangled up in Apocalypses. Apocalypsii? He's sure it's all Aziraphale's fault anyway, but he supposes they'll have to make the best of it.

* * *

><p><strong>9.<strong>

Aziraphale insists on going back to his bookshop first of all, to search through his collection to find any prophecies that might pertain to this particular Apocalypse. To be honest though, that's not the only reason. He just feels safer with the smell of old books around him, the safety of the home he's had for the past thousand years, even if it's a fiction at the moment. He leaves Crowley lounging impatiently in the stacks while he heads through to one of the back rooms where he keeps his rarest, most precious books; the misprinted Bibles, the books of prophecy, signed first editions from some of his favourite authors. Somewhere he has a scroll of the Names of the Prophets, brought, or rather, appropriated, from Heaven. He has collected what books he can find from most of the names on the list, those that have been born anyway, and maybe re-reading it will spark a memory. He is certain he recalls _something_ about a Righteous Man.

The Scroll takes up most of the table when he rolls it out, and the letters are small enough that Aziraphale has to squint as he scans down the list. It's Enochian, more accurate than any human naming system. There may be a hundred men named Nostradamus; this identifies which is the genuine article.

It was fairly recent, he knows that much, but it's not until he reaches the late nineteen-seventies that he sees it. Chuck Shirley is born. Prophet of the Winchester Gospels, America. There's no doubt about it. He is the one.

"Crowley," he calls. "Could you have a quick look in the paperback section for me please?"

There is the sound of grumbling from the front, but the demon shouts back, "What am I looking for?"

"Supernatural Fantasy, an author called Chuck Shirley." He fumbles for paper and a pen, trying to wring ink from several dried up biros before giving up and willing a functioning one into existence, then begins to jot down the short biographical information the scroll provides. They're bound to need it later.

Once he's finished, he rolls the scroll back up tightly and returns it to the hermetically sealed sarcophagus shoved haphazardly under the book-binding table. "Have you found them Crowley?" he says, going to find him. He's probably gotten lost amongst the Victorian erotica.

"There are enough of them, aren't there." Crowley's somewhat annoyed voice rises up from somewhere among the bookcases. "There are two bloody _shelves_ of the things here!"

Aziraphale goes to have a look. Admittedly, it has been a while since he had bought the things, and he hadn't paid much attention to them other than quickly sorting them and putting them somewhere they wouldn't easily be found by curious customers. Crowley has a point, he sees, rounding the corner and discovering the demon poking at a long line of thin, near-identical paperbacks, their titles printed in a font that conjures to mind cheap pulp fiction horror.

"I suppose we'll just have to find some bags," he says.

"What," Crowley says, looking round. "Why are we taking them with us? What's wrong with just coming back here when we need to look something up?"

"Oh, we can't be popping back to England all the time," Aziraphale says breezily. "Come on, it won't be any trouble dear."

"And where will we put them when we're following the Winchesters around?" Crowley says with a raised eyebrow.

"We'll just have to get a motel room."

There is a long silence. "I think your logic may be a bit flawed," Crowley says finally. Aziraphale glares at him a little bit. They end up taking the books.

* * *

><p>Keeping an eye on the Winchesters, or stalking them, as Aziraphale thinks of it with a certain degree of distaste, is perfectly easy for the first week before the two humans very suddenly and abruptly drop off the map. They haven't died, because there would still be the afterglow of their souls around, but nor is it the effect of your average hex bag, since after the last time they came prepared to counteract that kind of human magic. Whatever it is, it's clever, Aziraphale has to give them that.<p>

As soon as it happens they fly to the Winchester's location, but the pair are already gone. Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves in a small storage room, stuffed full of arcane items, cursed objects, rare books and various other miscellanea. There are also two dead angels.

Crowley crouches down to examine the empty vessels, poking at the blade wounds that must have killed them, though Aziraphale notices he is careful not to touch the dark shadows of their broken wings spread out on the floor.

"Angelic sword, definitely," Crowley says. "Must be the same angel who hid the Winchesters. I'm thinking Enochian warding?"

"But how would they write that onto a human... oh." Aziraphale looks ever so slightly ill. "That can't have been pleasant for the poor dears."

"Worry about who's responsible," Crowley says sourly. "Because unless those brothers have picked up _another_ guardian angel, I don't have a bloody clue who we might be looking for."

"Castiel was killed, I'm sure of it," Aziraphale says, a little pained. It isn't something he wants to dwell on, in the same way as he is trying not to think about his dead brothers on the cold concrete floor.

"You sure about that?"

"Very sure. I felt him die, and I can't feel his presence anywhere."

"Well the alternative can't be anything good. If Zachariah wants the Apocalypse, there aren't many angels who'll go against him, and there's not much else that could have killed these," Crowley says grimly, standing back up and nudging one of the vessels with his foot to illustrate his point.

"So we need to find the Winchester brothers again before anything untoward happens," Aziraphale says firmly.

"Well if you have any ideas?" Crowley spreads his arms wide. "They're hunters, they know how to hide."

"Perhaps we're thinking about it in the wrong way," Aziraphale says, slowly mulling an idea over in his mind. "Perhaps we ought to try using human methods to track them, not supernatural ones. I mean, since they _are_ hunters, would it not be simpler to act like they do, to find supernatural beings that are hurting people and see if they turn up to deal with them."

"That's assuming they're just going to go back to normal," Crowley points out, looking rather sceptical. "Not that it isn't a good idea, but these guys have just started the Apocalypse, and they know it. There's no way it's going to be situation normal. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to off themselves."

Aziraphale gives him a disapproving look. "You shouldn't make light of things like that," he says primly. "Anyway, you ought to have faith in the resiliencies of the human spirit..."

"No I don't," Crowley interrupts, "I'm a demon."

"Or at least in the strength of their desire to live," he finishes, ignoring Crowley's snark. He loves the demon, he truly does, but on occasion he can be rather, well, demonic. Of course, he wouldn't have him any other way, but that isn't to say they don't have their little tiffs.

"If they really had any kind of survival instinct, they wouldn't be hunters," Crowley says. "But no, you're right angel. That's the best option we have. Well done."

"We shall have to do quite a bit of research," Aziraphale says. Indeed, he's rather looking forward to it. He understands they use something called the Internet these days, and although he has never been bothered to learn much about it yet – it _has_ only been around for a few years, after all, and what's that in the scheme of things, it might have gone out of fashion again in a decade – but Crowley will know how to work it, and he can teach him.

"My heart is fairly aquiver with excitement," Crowley says sarcastically.

* * *

><p><strong>10.<strong>

Two more weeks pass without much incident, and then, all of a sudden, and as a rather unpleasant surprise, something changes. Of course, the Horsemen were always going to be involved, but Crowley had been expecting them to act as they had the first time round, roaming the world much as they usually did, if a little more energetically, waiting for the word of the Antichrist. Apparently the Grigori have other plans.

The binding ritual sends out a massive psychic echo across the supernatural realm, the fallout of which can easily be felt several states away from the epicentre. The false Lucifer has chained War, forced the Horseman under his control, to do his will and his word. At the time Crowley and Aziraphale had been finding their way into the good graces of one of the hunter gossip networks by taking care of some cursed farmland, but there's no question about where they're going once it happens. They leave at once, a startled reaction of wings and Grace to the undoubtedly malevolent magic, flying to the source.

River Pass, Colorado is almost abandoned when they arrive. There are a few human souls still detectable, scattered around the town, mainly in two separate clumps several blocks from each other. War is still here too. Violence and wrath still taint the air, warped pigin Enochian bastardised with the tongues of Hell. It prickles on Crowley's skin, and he makes a face of disgust.

"No bodies," he says, noticing it for the first time

"They've been taken away." Aziraphale points to the trails of smeared blood splattered over the sidewalk like a stubborn bottle of ketchup over a new shirt.

"How much are you willing to bet we're going to stumble across the Winchesters here somewhere?" he says, in lieu of anything better. Aziraphale smiles.

"That would be rather... Ineffable," he says brightly. "We should look. We might not get another chance after all."

Crowley knows his angel is right. Lucifer won't exactly be pleased that they lost them at all, and if they don't manage to find them again before he checks in... well he can't imagine that it'll be pretty. That doesn't mean he has to like it. "So long as we keep well out of the way," he says. "I don't want War after us. Let's just take a quick look around and get the fuck out of here."

"Understandable, my dear," Aziraphale says quietly. "I myself have no wish to take on a Horseman at this point in time either."

"Leave it to Lu- Samael." He makes a face. It's not that he doesn't trust the devil to have a plan; he always has a plan. It's just that whatever it is, there's no guarantee he and Aziraphale are going to come out the other side in one piece. Samael only gives a damn about his own skin.

They make their way on foot towards the other end of town, to be less obvious to certain nasty supernatural beings that may be lurking around. Crowley fidgets nervously, wishing he'd brought at least some sort of weapon. Even last time around he'd had that tire iron. "While we're on the subject of overpowered beings," he says as they slink past a 7/11 with a couple of dead humans in it, "and I don't know why no-one's brought this up before – why don't we ask Adam to fix this whole bloody mess?"

"He's retired from Anti-Christing," Aziraphale says mildly. "And it really isn't fair on him to use him as a _deus ex machina_ every time something goes wrong with the world."

"It's not like it's just a _little_ thing," Crowley says, a bit of heat behind it. "It is the bloody _Apocalypse_, angel, not some minor dust up between humans."

"I don't even know how much of his power he kept. I'm sure if he wants to step in though he will." Aziraphale is being rather serene about the whole thing, but then, the angel doesn't tend to get flustered about supernatural matters. Just the stranger concepts humans come up with. And sex. Let's not forget that. That's one of the reasons Crowley likes fucking him so much. It's just so bloody delicious.

In any case, now is hardly the time to be thinking about sex. They have Winchesters to find after all, and who knows, War might be looking for them too, and that's even assuming the humans are here at all. Crowley doesn't have the same faith in Ineffability that Aziraphale does, but he _does_ believe in the sheer bloody-mindedness of the universe, and it would be _very_ like that kind of coincidence to find them here.

"We'll cover more ground if we split up," Aziraphale says quietly to him. "We can each check one of the groups of humans."

Crowley has to admit it makes sense. "Alright," he whispers back. "But keep a low profile, okay angel. If you catch sight of War, get the fuck out of there."

"Of course dear." Aziraphale heads off up the street, leaving Crowley to make his way off at roughly right angles down the back of the row of houses. It doesn't take much concentration to make himself invisible to human eyes. It is the same principle that works on his wings; humans don't see things that don't fit into their worldview, especially supernatural things. This just extended it to the rest of him. It wouldn't work if he was wearing some poor idiot though. Just another one of the perks of owning your own form on Earth.

He can hear the sound of gunfire well before he reaches the standoff. It's not exactly a surprise with War in the area, but he has to wonder just what the two groups of humans are seeing in one anther that makes them try and kill without flinching in the slightest. Unless there's some long standing town grudge, the sort of thing that comes out in county fetes with women trying to outdo each other's jam and sizable vegetables, he muses, watching from the next garden over, well out of the line of fire. From what he can tell, War has just left the house, and he can't see either of the Winchester brothers from here.

Crowley realises unhappily that if he wants to find anything he's going to have to brave the battlefield. It's not as though he has much to fear from a few bullets unless some overzealous right-winger has gotten the bright idea to bless them, but this is America after all, so there's a higher chance of that than he is entirely comfortable with. And he can't chance one of the brothers getting themselves killed while he waits for it all to be over. One stray bullet is all it would take, and then he and Aziraphale's necks would be on the line when Samael found out.

He circles round the area, taking in the positions of the humans in the bushes surrounding the house. None of them are who he's looking for, so if either of the Winchesters are even here, they'll be inside. Perhaps a better idea will be to sneak in through the back, while the defenders are focused on their enemies out here. Yes. That sounds nice and safe, or as safe as he's likely to get. He has to hop a fence to get round, in what he's sure would be a terribly undignified way if there was anyone around to see it, which he's very thankful there isn't. Aziraphale wouldn't mock him, exactly, but he would look very fond and a bit smug and would be utterly unbearable in that understated way of his.

Crowley has just stepped inside the unlocked and unguarded door when there is a massive flare of power several streets away, and the binding on War crumples and melts away like a crisp packet on a campfire, and the gunfire stops like someone's thrown a switch. He freezes. He has no idea how it happened, but someone just set War free.

He doesn't know what he was expecting to happen next, but in the event it turns out to be a bit of an anticlimax. War skips town, leaving the humans alone in the process. Crowley has a certain sneaking suspicion that the Winchesters were behind this. It would be just like their kind of luck, which is perhaps closer to destiny, a thing that he is just starting to grasp about these two humans. Their unceasing ability to be in the right place at the right time. The only reason War would have left this town intact is through gratitude, gratitude he must owe to a mortal or mortals. Crowley sighs. He's not entirely sure what to do now.

Aziraphale chooses this moment to appear from the foliage of the garden, hair tousled, and looking rather pleased with himself. "There you are my dear," he says, sounding rather too happy for all that they have just royally wasted their time here.

"What are you smirking about?" Crowley says. "We're no closer to finding those bloody Winchesters than we were before."

"That's not quite true dear," Aziraphale says, holding up his hands angelically. "You'll be pleased to know they _were_ here today."

"Oh? And how do you know that?"

"I found their car." The angel looks very smug at this pronouncement. That's probably the sin of pride, but last time he checked, no one Up There gave a damn about Aziraphale's less than appropriate tendencies these days.

"So?" Crowley drawls. "They'll have left in it by now, and I notice you aren't exactly _still_ watching it are you?"

"I don't need to Crowley. I etched Enochian tracking symbols onto the chassis."

"That's _sneaky_," Crowley says, a little impressed despite himself. "I'm surprised at you angel."

"Well, I learnt from the best didn't I?" Aziraphale smiles at him. Crowley smirks back. His angel might have had a good influence on him, but he can proudly say it isn't at all one way. He steps closer, his arms winding around Aziraphale's waist. He's just about to lean in for a celebratory kiss when a polite cough interrupts him.

"Well isn't _this_ interesting?" an unpleasantly familiar voice says. "The Serpent of Eden himself, canoodling with an angel, of all beings."

Crowley turns round, very slowly. This is the last bloody thing he needs right now. "Crowley," he hisses. His little... protégé.

"Hello Anthony." James gives him a little wave. "Very clever of you tracking them like that. Seems we both had the same idea there. Now. _What in bloody hell are you doing with that angel?"_

* * *

><p>"It's not what it looks like," Crowley says quickly, pushing Aziraphale away from him. James raises a sceptical eyebrow.<p>

"Now I find that hard to believe Anthony. I wonder, what _would_ Lucifer say if he knew about this?"

For a moment Crowley is confused. Lucifer already knows, obviously. But then he realises, James doesn't _know_. He doesn't know that the being who seemingly rose from Hell is an imposter, that he was being used by Lilith all along. However that doesn't mean he's not dangerous. Crowley and Aziraphale have been under the radar so far; he'd appreciate Samyaza not knowing that they're trying to stop him. Crowley turns slowly on the spot to face the lesser demon.

"What makes you think I'll let you tell him?" he says, taking a step forward, his wings flaring out menacingly.

"Whoa," James says, holding up his hands, still grinning. "I never said I was _going_ to tell him, now did I? No. Of course I trust you first. We've known each other long enough haven't we? But you have to admit, it doesn't look good."

"So what do you want?" Crowley's eyes narrow. "You're not going to try and blackmail_ me_ are you?"

"Things haven't been going to plan," James says, lowering his hands and stuffing them into the pockets of his trousers instead. "Lilith never said anything about dying. And I've yet to see any of the promised rewards for breaking the big guy out of gaol. So I figure, who do I know who'll have all the answers? Why, it'll be that sly snake Anthony Crowley, my old mate! I'll go see him."

Crowley pauses. This is an opportunity. He can use this. _They_ can use this. He smiles, laying on the charm. "Well you've come to the right demon," he says. "I'm sure we can work all this out if we just sit down and have a little chat."

"And the angel?" James asks, looking suspiciously at Aziraphale.

"Will most assuredly not be doing any smiting." Crowley pats his rather confused partner on the shoulder lightly. "I think it's time someone let you in on what's _really_ happening."

* * *

><p><strong>11.<strong>

Anthony takes them back to a hotel a couple of towns over to offer up excuses in private and comfort, the angel tagging along like a particularly holy shadow. Crowley watches him carefully. This isn't some little Third Sphere like the Winchester's Fallen soldier, this is a Seraph, the real deal, the fucking First Sphere. Quite capable of banishing him back to the Pit with a few well-placed words, or wiping him off the map if he really felt like it. The only reason he hasn't run a mile right now is that Anthony is clearly comfortable with him being around, and, as promised, the angel hasn't been aggressive at all. In fact, he seems to be sneaking almost curious looks at him, as though he's trying not to scare him off. It's really quite patronising. Crowley means to get to the bottom of this. Anthony has been keeping secrets.

"So here we are," he says, looking around the room dismissively. He generally has higher standards than this, it must be said. "So perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me why you had your hands all over one of Heaven's little birdies?"

Anthony clears his throat. "James, this is Aziraphale. Aziraphale, James. James was my protégé in the Pit. I may have mentioned him once or twice."

"You'll excuse me if I don't shake hands," Crowley drawls, standing well away from the angel. "I'm terribly allergic to holiness." To his surprise, the Seraph – Aziraphale – smiles at him.

"Yes, you two do sound rather alike. I can see the resemblance."

Crowley narrows his eyes. Angels aren't _nice_. Not to demons. And it isn't as if this Aziraphale is Fallen – he'd be able to tell _that_. No, this is a bona fide servant of the Lord. "And?" he prompts.

The angel coughs genteelly. "Well I suppose you would say... we're in a relationship. We have an Arrangement."

Crowley can feel his eyebrows trying to migrate off his face. This... oh, _this_ is unexpected. How in the name of Lucifer has this angel managed to stay in Heaven if he's been having it off with Anthony on the side? That's practically Nephilim territory, for Hell's sake! And he can't imagine any of the Dukes being very impressed with Anthony either. The angel hasn't Fallen; he can't cry tempting.

"I know, I know," Anthony says, scowling. "Please don't say anything."

"Who would believe me?" Crowley says, grinning like a maniac. Even if Anthony doesn't know anything worth the trip, he still has some _excellent_ blackmail material, and he's sure he's slippery enough to survive long enough to use it. If necessary. Anthony clearly doesn't exactly believe him either, judging from the expression on his face, but he doesn't pursue the topic any further.

"You want to know what's going on with the Apocalypse or not?"

Crowley leans back against the dresser. "I'm all ears."

* * *

><p>In the end, Crowley almost can't believe what he's hearing when Anthony spills the whole story. It takes a while to tell, beginning to end; the machinations of supernatural beings are never simple. The trouble is it makes all too much sense. Why Lilith, such a big name in the hierarchy of Hell, would content herself with recruiting once-humans, who could be guaranteed not to have ever met the real deal. Why they had heard nothing from her after the Raising. Why there had been rumours of demons being killed, permanently, in binding rituals for the Horseman War. It makes him doubly angry; angry that he was ever taken in in the first place, and angry that <em>Grigori<em> thought they could use Hell's own people to further their own ends. He has no doubt whatsoever that these Fallen Angels have the destruction of both Heaven _and_ Hell as their objectives.

"So the two of you are planning to stop them?" he asks, barely containing just how very pissed off he is. "I want in. I want fucking revenge."

"I was hoping you'd see it our way," Anthony says. "And think; you'd be dong the Morningstar himself a favour."

"One I can only cash in if he gets his True Name back. As if I needed more of an incentive. I get it. Helping you two is in my own best interests Don't worry. You've got me on board."

"Glad to hear it." Anthony gets up to shake his hand and seal the deal. Crowley's not going to insist on a kiss with the other demon's angelic lover in the same room. "I'll give you a call when we know more."

"Nice to meet you," the angel says to him as he leaves the hotel room, smiling like he means it. Crowley honestly can't tell if he's serious. Aziraphale is the oddest angel he's ever met – well, he is the _only_ angel he's ever met. This alliance certainly won't be dull. Risky, certainly, but never dull.

* * *

><p>In the days following War's appearance Castiel has noticed something very strange, something which he finds rather alarming. He can't be entirely sure of it, because they never come close enough for his Grace to get a fix on them, but he is sure that someone is tracking them. Someone supernatural.<p>

He can't work out how they're doing it. The sigils on Dean's ribs remain as strong as ever, and he has taken precautions of his own to hide his Grace from his brothers. Now that they know he is alive, he can't afford to lead them to the Winchesters by his own presence. He worries, he must admit, now that Samuel has parted ways from his brother and he can't monitor him, but he understands that they need to work out their issues before they come together again, which he has no doubt they will. Eventually.

The identity of the beings following them continues to elude him. He has tried to get a sense of them multiple times, but they have managed to sneak away out of range each time. He knows there are two of them, and he is fairly sure they are angels, or of angelic levels of power, but no more. So far they have made no move against Dean and himself, seemingly content to keep watch from a distance. It's unlikely they have been sent from Zachariah, else something would have happened by now.

He hasn't told Dean any of this. He doesn't want to worry him without due cause. He has enough to think about at the moment, even more so since they are due to summon Raphael soon. In a few hours, the point may be moot, Castiel knows, since he will probably be dead. He doesn't want to leave Dean without his protection, but this will all be worth it if they manage to find his Father. And he is beginning to have faith in the Winchester's own brand of death-defying luck.

"Show yourselves," he shouts to the sky, to these watchers in the night, drizzling rain running down his face and misting his hair. "Come face me!"

Two pairs of wings flutter in the early morning light, and an angel and a demon alight in the car park. No, not a demon, he realises, a Fallen angel, though clearly one who has been in Hell long enough that the distinction is academic at this point. Castiel looks him over. Perhaps even one of those from the original Fall. And the angel... he is surprised to note that he recognises him from the days before Lucifer's rising. Aziraphale.

"Castiel!" Aziraphale says, wings fluttering in shock. "I thought you were dead."

"I was. Why are you following me? Who is this hell-spawn you suffer to stay in your presence?"

"I take offence at that," the Fallen one says, though he sounds more amused, before Aziraphale talks over the top of him.

"Someone brought you back? Who?"

"_Why are you here_?" Castiel lets his blade fall into his palm, holding it ready. He doesn't trust this angel, his demonic counterpart even less so.

"We're not here to hurt you _or _the Winchesters," Aziraphale says, putting his hands out, palms up. "We're on the same side here, Castiel."

"Forgive me if I don't take you at your word. Who sent you? How did you find me?"

"No one _sent_ us, angel," the Fallen One says, his eyes narrowed. "But as you and your humans seem to be so caught up in this whole Apocalypse business, which is something neither of us is very keen on, we thought you might be the ones to back to stop this thing. We only want to help."

"Or you want to know our plans so that you can stop us," Castiel says. They seem hesitant to answer his questions properly, which is suspicious enough, but even though one is Fallen, he can feel the calm, steady beat of faith that burns under Aziraphale's skin. He is Heaven's, through and through. There is no way he could be against what Zachariah has ordered.

"We do not want the Apocalypse," Aziraphale says, insistent. "I swear it to you on my Grace, Castiel. All we want is to offer you aid."

"My brothers have lied to me before." And he has paid the price for that. He will not be fooled again.

"If our words can't make you trust us..."

"He won't go for it," the Fallen One says, turning to his comrade. "I told you, Third Sphere's are paranoid bastards the lot of them. We shouldn't have answered his call."

Castiel can feel his feathers bristling up at that. Yet the fact remains that these two have been tracking him, and whatever their stated intentions, that is not good. "How did you find us?" he asks again. "You should not have been able to."

"Oh, indirectly," the Fallen one says, with a sharp smile. "Shall we trade for answers then? Why don't you tell us who you think brought you back from the dead?"

"Our Father brought me back. It is the only possibility."

"You seem very sure of that," the Fallen one says. Aziraphale looks at him sadly.

"I'm sorry Castiel," he says. If he did not know how well his brothers can feign sincerity, he would almost believe it is real. "But our Father is dead."

"He is not," Castiel says, firm and sure. He has faced disbelief before, and he will not let it shake him. "He may be missing, but he is still present in Creation. I do not know where, but I intend to find him. Now," He glares at them, and turns his hand so that the flash of his blade is clearly visible. "Unless you know where he is, leave."

"The depth of your faith is a rare thing," Aziraphale tells him, "and beautiful. But it has been misplaced. You may not believe us for now, but I hope we can prove that we mean you no harm. We shall keep on watching."

They leave in a flurry of cream and grey feathers, returning to their post somewhere on the very edges of his perception. That seems to be the best he can hope for. He has not the power to force them to leave, not when he must save it for greater threats. He goes back inside to check on Dean.

* * *

><p><strong>12.<strong>

"How many Antichrists is it possible for Hell to make?" Aziraphale asks, clearly unhappy. Crowley can hardly blame him, with all that happened the last time they had anything to do with one of the Boy Kings. "Isn't there only supposed to be one?"

"You said yourself, Adam isn't anymore. Technically." Crowley shrugs. He won't pretend to be an expert on the metaphysics of it all. "Maybe he gave some of the power back, maybe there's more than one way to make the little Hellspawn. All I was ever told was that it took a pretty major player to father the kid."

His angel sighs. They've been following the Winchesters for too long, Crowley thinks. It's just motel room after motel room, small and rank with the psychic residue of hundred of transient human occupants. There's been no word from the devil, and the humans haven't exactly shown any sign of a plan in their wanderings. Not that there's a rush; Samyaza-Lucifer could win awards for the slowest end-of-the-world ever. This Antichrist business is the biggest thing that's happened since War.

"You think one of the Dukes might have allied with the Grigori," Aziraphale says, obviously considering that 'father' angle.

"It's possible. Unless those two new angel boys have been Downstairs long enough for the Taint to show. We already know Heaven's buying into this Apocalypse idea."

"Maybe," Aziraphale says. "I never knew them. I don't know whose side they might be on. At least this new Antichrist isn't as strong as Adam was."

"Not worldwide anyway," Crowley says. The boy's power was easy to pick up when it activated, as significant a psychic event as binding War was, but so far it has been confined to a very small area. "But he's still strong enough to take either of us up close. Maybe if Samael was here..."

Aziraphale shakes his head. "If he was at full power I would agree with you, but as it is... Perhaps it's time we think about offering our help to the Winchesters personally. I'm sure the humans will be more trusting than Castiel."

"Oh sure," Crowley says, a little sarcastically. "Hunters are known for their trusting nature. As if we could even get them alone without Castiel getting all over-protective and trying to kill us. At the very least he knows a banishing sigil or two."

Aziraphale's wings droop even further. Crowley has to suppress the urge to join him on the motel bed and run his fingers through his feathers in an attempt to cheer him up. "I hope Castiel doesn't know about the Antichrist," the angel says. "I'm sure he would try and do something drastic, and someone would only get hurt."

"Yeah, and not the kid." Crowley snorts.

"If we're going to do anything, we should just try _talking_ to the boy," Aziraphale says, his hands clasped together nervously in front of him.

Crowley snorts. "Oh come on. We were lucky the last time, but do you really think Heaven hasn't learned their lesson? They're not going to keep letting him grow up uninfluenced. They'll have someone whispering in his ear, turning him to their side. No, it's not our problem."

"How can you say that? If he is allowed to grow into his power they will turn him into a weapon! A _child_, Crowley. We can stop that."

"How?" He hates it when Aziraphale gets all self-sacrificing and righteous like this. He, for one, is going to keep a healthy hold on his own sense of self-preservation. "You were prepared to kill the last kid, and look how well that turned out! And talking? You think whoever they've got guarding him is going to allow that?"

Aziraphale has that determined look which says he's not going to be budged on this issue. "We should at least take a look. We have to try."

"Oh, why do I let you push me around?" Crowley says under his breath. It's not like he cares about one little half-human kid or anything.

* * *

><p>Whether through Ineffability, or because, as Crowley would say, the Universe truly does hate them that much, the Winchester brothers and their angel are already at the house when they arrive. Aziraphale looks over at Crowley, taking in the tips of his parchment coloured wings shuddering with barely suppressed agitation, and the slight suggestion of a folk in his tongue as he wets his lips nervously. He understands, he really does; this is not a good situation for them to be in. The creeping pace of the Apocalypse has only worsened the tension growing over the past few weeks. At least the last time, things happened too fast for them to have time to be anxious.<p>

"There'sss a demon in there, I don't know if you noticed," Crowley says, hissing slightly. "And no sign of Cassstiel getting all sssmite-y. I sssuppose you want to sssssswoop in there and save the day."

"It might help our case with them," Aziraphale says. In truth, he's not anywhere near as sure of himself as had pretended, back in their motel room.

"I think the Antichisssst can look after himself," Crowley says, shuffling backwards. "Let'sssss go, before they spot us."

Aziraphale is trying to think up a good reason for staying when there is a burst of power from inside the house, and the demon is forcibly expelled from its host, disappearing out the window and disappearing in a cloud of black smoke. The Winchesters both feel alive and healthy, so he supposes they must have done something right.

"Huh," Crowley says. "They ssseem to be getting on fine without us."

"What do you think they're talking about?"

"I don't know, and I don't care –"

The incoming rant is abruptly cut off by the sudden appearance of the Antichrist. He is a boy of about Adam's age at the last Apocalypse, wearing faded and worn jeans and a t-shirt, glaring up at them with his arms crossed.

"Who're you lot then?" he asks suspiciously. "And you'd better tell the truth, or else."

"Um," Crowley says. "He'ssss an angel, and I'm a fallen one." Which, from his expression, was not exactly what he'd meant to say. Aziraphale can feel the surge of power surrounding them, a compulsion forcing their honesty.

"I'm not going to fight in your war," the Antichrist says defiantly. "I'm going to Australia." Aziraphale blinks. That is... unexpected.

"Well," he says. "Good. That's good."

Beside him, Crowley steels himself and crouches down so he's face to face with the child. "Hey kid," he says, keeping his voice soft. "got a name?"

"Yeah. Jesse." His gaze flicks between them. "So... you ain't going to tell me I gotta fight?"

"No, that's not why we came here," Aziraphale says. "In fact, we have a friend who's like you."

"Sam an' Dean told me I was the only one."

"Well, they didn't know about our friend. But before you were born, he was the Antichrist, and he didn't want to fight either."

"Is that why they made me then?" Jesse asks in a small voice. "Am I, like, their replacement."

Crowley smiles at him awkwardly. "It doesn't matter what they wanted," he says. "All that matters is what you choose. That's one of the great things about being human; free will. You should talk to our pal. Maybe he could give you some advice."

"I don't know..." the Antichrist says. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You can't really kid. But we can't hurt you. You've got the power to stop us."

Jesse thinks about this. He remains silent for some time. Aziraphale feels sympathy for him. It can't be easy to discover all this so suddenly. Even Adam hadn't had it explained so bluntly; it had been sprung on him unprepared but almost instinctive. If he had really known his true powers, the world would have ended that day.

"Okay," Jesse says eventually. "Okay, I'll talk to him."

Crowley wishes paper into existence, Adam's name and address already written upon it. He hands it to Jesse. "Just want to be there, and you will be," the demon says. The child looks up at them, closes his eyes in concentration, and disappears.

"Well," Crowley says. "That went a lot better than I expected."


	3. Chapter 3

**13.**

"What's wrong with Castiel?" Sam asks him after they leave Jesse's home.

"What do you mean?" Dean asks. Sure, killing a kid is a pretty shitty thing to try and do, but it's fairly typical angel logic. Nothing wrong there.

"Don't you think he's been acting a little... strangely... lately?"

"Not really, no," Dean says shortly. Not more than normally, in his opinion. Cas has always been strange by human standards, and that's not changed. He tries his best though. Maybe he's been a little more stressed, which for him means it's just barely noticeable, but Dean's been putting that down to the search for God not going too well.

"He seems tense," Sam says.

"We're all pretty tense Sammy, I mean, come on." He gestures widely, trying to illustrate the crap that is their lives. "We've got plenty to be worried about, don't we."

"Yeah, but this is _Castiel_ we're talking about."

"What, angels can't worry about the Apocalypse?" Sam doesn't look too convinced. Now Dean thinks about it, he supposes Cas has been acting a little weird, scanning the shadows when he's with them, like he's looking for something, and he doesn't look happy about it.

"It's something more specific than that," Sam says, insistent.

"If it's so important, he'll tell us." Dean is confident about that much.

"We could just ask him."

Dean glares. "Don't you trust Cas?"

Sam rolls his eyes. He thinks Dean can't see him, but he totally can. "Of course I do." He sounds exasperated. "Buy Castiel is as bad as you are when it comes to talking about things that might hurt him, and I mean him personally. I mean, he _died_ for you, remember. If something was threatening his safety he might not mention it if he didn't want to bother us, even if we could help him with it."

Dean wavers. He doesn't want to admit it, but Sam has a point. Cas doesn't always take good care of himself, and the angel has been hurt for them enough times already. "Fine. We'll ask him. But we don't push if he don't want to talk about it." He points a warning finger in his brother's face.

"Good," Sammy says, satisfied. "We'll do it next time he shows up."

* * *

><p>In the end they don't get the chance to ask, because the next time Cas drops by is squaring off against the Trickster, who turns out to be Gabriel. Yeah, <em>that<em> Gabriel. Cas doesn't stick around long after that, and Dean sympathises. Family can really hit you where it hurts, and it seems that does't change even when you're an angel.

It doesn't matter. They can talk to Cas when he's feeling more up to it.

* * *

><p>Gabriel sticks around in the warehouse for a bit after the Winchesters leave. He's wet, miserable, and his wings are feeling a little singed around the edges. They might not be visible to a human, but there are a lot of them, and trying to get them to fit inside a poky little circle of holy oil is no easy task. So he's sulking a bit. He figures it's justified. It's been centuries since he has had to be this person, and it feels... not quite right.<p>

He left because he didn't like the fighting, yes, but also because he didn't like what it was turning him into. Killing the Nephilim was something he would never have done, once upon a time. Of course it had taken him a few centuries to actually figure that out, but angels weren't designed for introspection. As a Trickster, he had killed people, yes, but never innocents, and things were simpler as a pagan god.

The Winchesters had managed to see through all that. He hadn't really though his little trip through TV would teach them anything; no, they were far too bull-headed for that. But it was amusing watching them flail around, and as they were the ones who had kick started this whole Apocalypse mess, he figured they definitely deserved it. But somewhere in there he had overplayed his hand. He had given himself away, and let them see right through him to the truth he's been suppressing for nigh on a millennia. It isn't fair.

"Hello Gabriel," a warm voice says behind him. It is horribly familiar.

"Hey big brother." He turns around, dropping the Trickster mask back down tight over the shiny angel parts of him, plastering on a grin like he didn't _know_ this shit was going to happen. Like he's not dreading it with every fibre of his being.

Lucifer is much as he always was, to first glance. But when Gabriel tries to look deeper, to see the state of his Grace, there's something wrong. He narrows his eyes. "What happened to you?" he gestures vaguely. "You're all... small."

"I might ask the same," his brother says. There's a wariness in his sun-yellow eyes, and he's got that slightly stiff look that Gabriel remembers meaning he is pretty damn annoyed. "You're possessing a Trickster."

"What can I say?" Gabriel smoothes a hand down the front of his vessel possessively. "I wanted out, and I wanted a way to still enjoy myself afterwards. Don't worry, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"And do your fellow gods know what you truly are?" Gabriel scowls, then wishes he hadn't. He hasn't had to censor his emotions in an age; it hasn't mattered in that long. But where his brother is concerned, any weakness is an opportunity. In any case, the answer is plain enough. He couldn't. They wouldn't forgive him his deception, and aside from pissing them off, it would also rather defeat the point of being undercover in the first place.

"You never answered my question," he says, evading. "What happened to you Lu-" He chokes on the Name, and... oh. Oh, he understands now. He grins, slow and lazy. Of all the things to happen to his brother, this is the one he would least expect. "I think you're missing something."

For all it must gall him, Samael doesn't react. "Did you really believe _I_ was the one leading this foolish attempt at Apocalypse?" he asks, calm as ever. "After all that I have done to avoid such paths of predestination?"

"I thought perhaps you were trying to take the Throne."

"If I wanted it, I would have it." Samael's eyes flash with quickly hidden anger. His Name might be gone, but none of the burning flames of his will. "For all the blood of our brothers it would cost me."

Gabriel shrugs, not willing to offer an actual apology. "Then who is it that's running around pretending to be you?"

"The Grigori, Samyaza." Not an answer he would have thought of, but it makes sense enough.

"So, what, you're going to stop him?" Gabriel grins, gesturing to the much reduced state of his brother's grace. He's willing to bet that he has more power as a Pagan God than Samael has right now.

His brother's smile is razor-sharp. "I learned a long time ago how to use guile when strength was not enough." The sting in the tail of those words is the memory of the war, of the Fall. Gabriel suppresses a flinch. He has seen the havoc wreaked by Lucifer's mind.

"Then I'll be sure not to get in your way."

"You seemed to think the end of the world was His will, when you thought I was the one responsible. Do you change your tune so fast?"

"You and Michael are the only ones who know what his plan is now," Gabriel says, scowling. "Zachariah and Raphael claim Michael is backing them. What was I supposed to think?"

Samael looks almost surprised to hear Michael's name, but he doesn't contradict him. This only makes Gabriel suspicious. Instead, his brother says, "I do not care what you think, so long as you do not get in my way. And do not interfere either."

"What interfering? Do you see me interfering?"

"The Winchesters."

"What do you need _them_ for? They're only human, aside from being vessels, and we both know you don't need one of those."

Samael smiles the smile of one in the know. "If Samyaza wishes to follow a predestined path, he should take more heed of how narrow its course. He's playing from prophecy. I am not."

His brother always has been fond of cryptic statements. "Then I won't touch them again, I swear on my Grace." Not that he was ever particularly keen on coming down on one side or the other, so long as the whole thing ended for good. He made himself a promise a long time ago to never raise a hand against his brothers again, and he'll gladly let Samael take that possibility away from him. He's sure his brother will come out of this victorious. He's developed something of a gift for winning since he left Hell, or so he's heard.

"You have changed," Samael says softly.

"Yeah, well, before I was an uptight dick." It doesn't pain him to admit it. His brother looks at him a little oddly, perhaps trying to match up the new Gabriel with the one he used to know, but then he blinks, and in the same breath is gone. Gabriel is alone once again, just him and his conscience, what little there is left of it.

The prospect of a beach is Hawaii is sounding better and better.

* * *

><p><strong>14.<strong>

Small town America does not particularly appeal to Crowley, more used to the variety of city life, but Aziraphale seems to find it rather quaint. That is the only explanation Crowley can find for why they are currently sitting in a diner waiting for the waitress to bring them both plates of pancakes, syrup and bacon, drinking cups of strong filter coffee. The coffee isn't bad, but for all the sugar he pours into it, it still doesn't quite compare to a 500 calorie confection from Starbucks. Crowley loves Starbucks. It's overpriced, terribly fattening, and taking over the world one city at a time. It's not his doing, but he wishes it was.

While they wait Aziraphale pulls out a local newspaper to read, though Someone knows where he got it. Crowley stares at the front page opposite him, glumly stirring his spoon round in circles. Local Man Saves Drowning Child. How sickeningly noble of him. And to think, this so-called paper is reporting on that, instead of all the earthquakes and destruction that are going on all round the world, courtesy of the coming Apocalypse. It's so damn parochial.

"The county fair is this weekend," Aziraphale says, peering at him over the top of the paper. He's smiling in a hopeful way, but Crowley isn't feeling in the mood to be cheered up, and certainly not by anything as wholesome as a _fair_. He slides down in his seat, glaring behind the cover of his sunglasses. Winchesters be damned, he just wants to go home. He's missing London, he's missing his flat, he's even missing the _bookshop_, by bloody Manchester!

A pleasant cough breaks him out of his sulk. Lucif – Samael is standing by their table with a smile that falls this side of mocking, and two plates of pancakes in his hands. Crowley stares at him stupidly.

"I believe these are yours," the devil says, sliding them in front of them. "Move over Crowley. We need to talk."

"What did you do to the waitress?" Crowley asks.

"So suspicious." He shows a hint of teeth. "She's fine."

"Good morning Samael," Aziraphale says, calmly putting his newspaper away. There's a thread of steel in his otherwise friendly tone. "Would you like some coffee? I'm afraid the tea here is just not the same, even if I'm making it myself."

Samael accepts the cup and slides gracefully onto the seat next to Crowley. "You have kept track of the Winchesters," he says.

Aziraphale nods. Crowley is attempting to become one with the wall. He really doesn't want to be stuck in such close proximity to his one-time boss, but it's not like he has much of a choice. "I have to say they don't seem to be getting very far with whatever plan they have," the angel says. "I'm not entirely sure what their aims are. But then, they are only two humans and one rogue angel."

"You might be surprised. They are important to the plan."

"So you know how to end this?" Aziraphale leans forwards, his unearthly, pale blue-grey eyes intense.

Samael nods, raising his cup to his lips. The steam curls off it like dragon's breath. "The first stage is ready, although the materials were harder to lay my hands on than I had anticipated. To move on, I will need you to find me the gun made by Samuel Colt, and blessed by Michael."

Crowley blinks in sudden realisation. "I know where that is." He was speaking with James about it just before Samyaza rose. Aziraphale looks at him in surprise.

"How convenient." The devil puts his hand in his pocket and brings out a little leather case with a gold clip, Enochian embossed all over the surface. He puts it down carefully on the sticky surface of the diner table. "Fetch it, load it with these bullets, and shoot the usurper."

"Will it kill him then?" Aziraphale asks, picking up the case and checking inside. "Hmm," he says to himself, "spelled bullets, I suppose."

"Not outright," Samael replies. "His demise will be rather more complicated than that. They will leach his power. He has lost the first of the Horsemen already, and he must lose the others too. He has to spend a little more of his energy with each binding, and each break hurts him. After that..." The slow-burning fires rise up behind his eyes again, and Crowley barely manages to stop himself shivering with fear.

"I don't suppose you'll tell us what you're planning?" Aziraphale says, a little too sharply for Crowley's liking. Those fierce hawk eyes fix on the angel.

"Your usefulness to me is limited," the devil says quietly. "As is the measure of my patience. Make no mistake, I could not care either way about your opinion of me so long as you do what you are told, but do not presume upon my confidences."

Aziraphale does not protest again, and Crowley is very, very grateful for that. Samael might be much reduced, but he is still a creature to be feared. He jumps in quickly to try and defuse the tension. "One of my associates has the Colt. I'll go and see him about it." At least it shifts the devil's attention away from his angel.

"Do that," Samael says. "And continue to keep a close eye on the Winchester brothers." He slides out of his seat, leaving the coffee cup behind, and strides away without a goodbye, at least waiting until he is out of the building before disappearing into his Creation with a flash of white light. In front of them, their pancakes sit untouched, already half way cold. Crowley hesitates for a moment, but he's got to say it.

"Are you _trying _to get killed?" he says, furious. "I thought we had discussed this? Don't you know when to shut up?"

"Crowley..."

"I don't want to have to watch him kill you," he says, grabbing desperately onto the sleeve of Aziraphale's jumper. "If he gets annoyed... At the dawn of Creation he ignited the stars, and he could do the same to you! It'll be like a bath in holy oil with a toaster that's on fire!" Not the most elegant simile he's ever used, but he thinks it gets the point across.

Aziraphale's expression softens, and he moves his hand so he can twine their fingers together. It's not something Crowley lets him do very often, because it's not like he wants anyone to get the impression he _cares_ or anything, but he supposes its acceptable under the circumstances. "I _am_ sorry Crowley," his angel says. "I don't mean to get so... so antagonistic. It's just that he was the Adversary for so long. I'm so used to thinking of him that way that I forget myself. I'll try my best to be more polite to him."

"I just don't want anything to happen to you," Crowley says, trying to ignore the way his voice shakes just a little bit.

"Nothing will happen my dear," his angel says softly. "I promise."

* * *

><p>Crowley knows James will be eager for an update, so he wastes no time in going to see him about the gun. His protégé gives him a warm welcome once he sees who it is, and lets him past the wards.<p>

"It's about time you showed up," James says, fixing them drinks. "You finally ready to tell me about your plan then?"

"I'll tell you what I know of it," Crowley says, shrugging, and taking the opportunity to stretch his wings out. They've been spending far too much time around humans, where he has to be careful what he's doing. Having your feathers drift through a human's body is a very unpleasant sensation. "The boss is playing his cards close to his chest."

"Why am I not surprised?" James smirks, swirling the scotch around in his glass. The ice-cubes make little 'tink' sounds.

"He gave us these," Crowley says, holding out the case of bullets. There are nine of them, three times three, each covered in thousands of tiny symbols, Enochian, Runes, Sanskrit, multitudes of others, power and death in a hundred languages. James whistles through his teeth when he sees them.

"Those will hit something with a bang, I'll tell you that." He closes the lid back over almost reverently. "Let me guess. I have a certain rather powerful gun, and you want to borrow it."

"Not me personally," Crowley says. "We may have helped inform the Winchester brothers of the fact that the Colt can kill the false Lucifer."

James raises a curious eyebrow. "Can it?"

"No, but you don't have to tell them that."

"Me?" James holds up his hands defensively. "Since when am I having anything to do with those two arrogant idiots?"

"Oh come on," Crowley says. "Just imagine the fun you could have with them. Play with them a little, hand over the gun and the bullets, get out of town quick before the Grigori figure out you were the one who gave them it."

"Oh yes, I'm liking this plan more and more," James says sarcastically. "I notice I'm the one taking on all the danger here. And for what? Something that won't even kill the bastard? What use is that?"

"Samael seems to think it's going to take him down in the long run," Crowley shrugs. "I'm sorry, but after all that bragging you did, anyone who's anyone Downstairs knows Lilith gave the Colt to you. If the Winchesters manage to dredge up the brains to think to check their information, your name is the one that's going to come up. The gun has to come from you."

James sighs, but seems to accept the truth of that argument. "At least we're using human patsies to actually do the dirty work." He slugs his whiskey and examines the glass contemplatively for a moment before putting it down. "At least I'll get to have a little fun with the angel meatsuits."

"Nothing fatal," Crowley warns. "We want them alive."

"So I'll just show them how outmatched they are," James says, grinning. "You going to stick around? I work best to an audience."

"Give me a call when they turn up and I'll see if I can make it, but no promises." Crowley shakes hands with his protégé, smiling slightly. He does like the demon, as much as one resident of hell can like another, even if he's as bloodthirsty as they come. "I appreciate the help."

"Hey, I'm still counting on that reward."

* * *

><p><strong>15.<strong>

Dean is willing to admit that now he's looking, Castiel has been acting a bit jumpy lately. That doesn't mean that Sam is right. Seeing Gabriel can't have been easy for him, another reminder that his family want to kill him and that he's cut off from Heaven. Or, for all Dean knows, Cas is worried about turning into a douche like said fake Trickster. If he knew exactly where Castiel's issues are coming from he'd... well, he wouldn't try and talk about it, exactly. That's not something he's good at. But there must be some way to make their fly-boy feel better.

Speaking of Gabriel, that was the last time they'd seen Cas. He had fluttered off again the minute they left the warehouse, and he hasn't been back since. Dean doesn't mind – he figures he had a few things to work out – but now they know where to find the Colt, they're going to need his help again. It's their best chance of taking Lucifer down, and even if they didn't need his angel powers, Dean's sure Cas would want to be here.

"We're going to need your help getting to this demon," he tells Cas's voicemail, after leaving him a long message giving him the low down on what they know so far. There's plenty to tell; they've been doing their research on this 'Crowley'. He's a big-shot, or what they would have called a big-shot pre-Apocalypse. The end of the world tends to redefine your priorities.

He finishes within moments of the second beep and hangs up. All they can do now is wait and hope Cas turns up. Sam has decided they can afford to give him a day or two before they have to go it alone, although apparently Bobby has called the Harvelles for back-up. Dean isn't quite sure how he'll feel about seeing them again. The last time they met, Sam had been possessed by Meg, and he had threatened to rape and kill Jo. He can't imagine they'll be thrilled to work with them again after something like that.

Dean spends the rest of that evening watching TV in their motel room before Cas turns up at about half past seven, just as he's thinking about ordering take out. "Dude. Where have you been?" Dean asks, jumping up and looking Cas over. The angel looks just like he always does, hair just the same length, the same growth of stubble, everything static down to the state of his suit and trenchcoat. Dean lets himself relax a little.

"I have continued the search for my Father," Cas tells him. "But I came as soon as I received your message."

"You could have popped in for a visit," Dean says, sitting back down on the end of the bed. "Just to let us know you're doing okay, you know. You don't have to have some special reason."

"Don't take it personally Dean. I enjoy the company of you and your brother, but every minute I spend with you is time I could use in my search. I cannot afford to waste even a second."

"I didn't mean it that way Cas..."

Castiel looks at him patiently, but even Dean doesn't really know where he's going with this. He just missed the guy, that's all.

"So anyway," he says, quickly changing the subject before it turns into a 'moment'. "The Colt."

"You have located the demon who holds it?"

"Yeah, some guy named Crowley. He's been handing the crossroads deals ever since Lilith bit it, which makes sense since he used to work for her. We've been tracking down folks making deals, trying to follow him back to where ever he's got it squirreled away, but he keeps slipping away. We thought you might have better luck."

Cas nods. "I can do this for you Dean."

Dean hesitates about it a moment, but he has to ask. "Give me your honest opinion Cas. Do you think the Colt can kill the devil?"

Cas sighs. "I am afraid I cannot answer that Dean. I do not know. However I believe it is possible. It is said that this weapon was blessed by Michael himself. It may be enough."

Dean supposes that's a good as he's going to get. "Even if we don't know," he says, "we've got to try anyway. This is the only solid plan we've got... aside from looking for God," he adds quickly. There is a slight pause while he tries to figure out whether he just hurt the angel's feelings. He doesn't want to lower his morale any more than it already might be, but he honestly doesn't think God is going to show. If he was about to turn up, he would have already.

He should probably take this opportunity to ask if Cas is okay, but in the face of that patient, faintly questioning gaze, he just can't force the words out.

"Okay," he says eventually, sighing. "Okay. Let's get this show on the road."

* * *

><p>"You know, it's really kind of funny," Becky says, snuggling up to Chuck's side. "I know I manage , but even I have to look up the details sometimes, and the scene with Crowley was totally just a throw-away line. It's almost as if I was inspired or something."<p>

Chuck shrugs. He really wishes she wouldn't talk about the Apocalypse in bed. He's got enough of an inferiority complex as it is.

* * *

><p><strong>16.<strong>

The photograph flickers to ashes in the flames. Castiel watches it burn until nothing is left. They all do. It is not the funeral pyre the hunters deserve, but it is all that it is possible to give. He understands mourning fallen comrades. He has had to do it many times over, from those who fell in a fight to protect the seals they were always meant to lose, to those he strikes down with his own blade. He did not know Ellen and Joanna for very long, but he had liked them, had rode into battle with them. They had not treated him any differently, knowing he was one of God's servants.

A flutter of his wings takes him outside. In the night sky the stars shine with an unearthly light. He sees them differently now, with human eyes, human senses. There is a certain beauty in it, but he misses hearing their cold song, heat dulled by the vastness of space, misses the clean mathematics of their paths in the heavens, the knowledge of each reaction of atom to atom in their hearts. He is falling, slowly and in increments, but falling nonetheless. His Grace is fading, and with it his powers, the very essence of his self. He will become smaller and smaller, more confined until he is nothing but human.

He could not exorcise the demon in the circle in Carthage. He could not help those two brave warriors who died to give Sam and Dean time to shoot Lucifer. He could not even aid them in that final confrontation before the mass grave, except to remove them from the scene at the end, when Lucifer's attention was turned away. Soon he will be of no use to them at all.

It was all for nothing anyway. The Colt failed. They could not kill the devil, and Death has been raised despite all their actions. The Apocalypse is one step further towards completion. Castiel has never before felt emotions in a human way, has never before known fear or hopelessness, but he has felt sorrow at the loss of his brothers and sisters in their fight against evil, and it is that he allows himself to feel now.

Once the last of his Grace has gone, he realises, he will no longer be able to protect the Winchesters from Heaven and Hell, will no longer even be able to protect _himself_. There are things he must do before he gets that far, wards he must put in place...

Perhaps the time has come to try trust. The angel and his fallen companion have kept their distance but they are still there, despite the fact that his ability to feel them weakens. He still hasn't managed to discover how they have been tracking them, but neither it seems has anyone else, and they have done nothing to hurt them. They have offered their help before, and perhaps he should take it. _They_ at least could protect Sam and Dean.

He paints in his own blood, mingled with holy oil, sandlewood, wormwood and myrrh, on the road outside the scrapyard then stares up at the night sky. A touch of his Grace calls power into the circle.

"Aziraphale," he calls, speaking the words of the summoning ritual in Enochian. "Show yourself to me, I call you." Without the name of the Fallen one, this is all he can do. Wings flutter. The angel appears in the circle, lit by its fire as Castiel drops the match he had been holding ready.

"You didn't need to take these precautions," Aziraphale says, inspecting the sigils beneath his feet. "I would have come however you asked me."

"You say you want to stop the Apocalypse." Castiel gets to the point directly. He has little time. Even in the depths of their mourning, the others will notice his absence eventually. "You say you want to help us. Will you do so?"

"You've decided to trust us?" his brother asks.

"My other options have been exhausted," Castiel says. "I do not... _trust_ you, but I accept that you mean well. My Grace is fading. Soon I will no longer be able to protect the Winchesters, and you are the only ones I can turn to."

Aziraphale nods. He has a kind of sympathy in his eyes, ageless and kind, which Castiel has not seen in one of his brothers for a very long time. "You should know," the angel says, "that my friend and I are not working alone. There is another Fallen angel who wants to stop Lucifer, who told us how important your charges are to our efforts. I can promise you my help, and my friend's, but I cannot speak for him."

"Anything you can do. I cannot let my friends come to harm." He does not ask, not yet, but he wonders who else would go against the wishes of Heaven and Hell. Perhaps someone like Anna, renouncing Heaven but not going so far as to Fall completely. If so, they must have done either long ago before his earliest memories, or very recently in the time he has been cut off from the gossip of Heaven, for he does not recall any angel ever doing as she did. "Thank you for this."

"We will win this," Aziraphale tells him firmly. "Our cause is just, and I have faith that our leader's plan will work."

Castiel nods, taking some measure of comfort from the words, and scuffs earth over the line of the circle to put out the flames and let his brother free.

* * *

><p>"We should tell him the truth," Aziraphale says. Crowley looks up from the TV where Dean Winchester is making a fool of himself for James' security cameras.<p>

"You want to tell Castiel that we're working for the _real_ once-ruler of Hell?" He raises an eyebrow in disbelief. "Sssomehow I don't think he would take that well."

"But surely if we explained the situation..."

"Angel, would _you_ have gone along with this at the start if he hadn't had something to hold over our heads?"

"Well... perhaps not. But that was before the fate of the whole world hinged on it!"

"That angel is – and I hesitate to think this is even possible – even more of a do-gooder than you. He won't think rationally. He'll lash out, and even if it's too late for them to refuse to use the Colt, there's bound to be other parts of Samael's plan they could cock up."

"If we're to protect the Winchesters properly, we're going to have to meet them at some point," Aziraphale says. "And they'll be curious to know who Samael is. He's told us himself they are part of his plan."

"So we wait for him to decide how to handle it!" Crowley says, with not a little exasperation.

"And in the meantime?"

"We lie." Crowley knows it is not something that comes easily to Aziraphale, even when it is only a lie of omission, but at least it is possible for him, unlike _some_ angels. "I'll even do most of the talking, if it offends you that much."

The angel scowls at him, but he doesn't say object any further. Crowley chooses to take this as an admission that he's right. Well, he has to win _some _of the arguments.

* * *

><p><strong>17.<strong>

At this point nearly all the pieces are in place, and all that remains for Samael is to wait, to be quietly patient in the way of immortals until the moment is right to act. He cannot move until the last of the Horsemen is bound and then broken free, until the spell now residing in Samyaza's borrowed flesh seeps enough of his stolen power away and returns it to him. Each day he can feel a little more of himself return. Of course, it is not a solution, and nothing so simple will be enough to bring back his Name.

He needs the Winchester brothers. Soon enough he will have to speak to them himself, to offer them the way out they so dearly require. As with all things, there will be a cost, but judging by their actions in the past, they will pay it, and be glad to. Martyrs and self-sacrificing heroes make excellent tools.

* * *

><p>Crowley and Aziraphale continue on much as they have before, keeping watch and on the alert for any possible threats to the Winchester's wellbeing. It is only because it does not occur to them to consider the possibility of dream-walking that they miss the arrival of the Fallen Archangel Anael and the plan she proposes.<p>

The first they know of this latest threat is the sudden knowledge that something is _wrong_, that something significant has happened. The act of time travel is not a thing that weighs lightly on the fabric of reality, and for anyone watching it is as obvious as though someone had thrown paint over the walls of the world. Aziraphale stares at the tear in frustration. He and Crowley came as soon as they could, but even so there's no way of telling if they would end up in the right place if they followed it through. Besides, he's a little nervous about making the hole any bigger than it already is. He's heard horror stories in his Garrison about angels who tried to turn back the flow of time, change things that shouldn't be changed. Tentacles were usually involved.

Beside him, Crowley hisses through his teeth. "Why did they even chance it?" he says, poking the edges, reading what information there is to be gleaned from the glowing shards. "You saw how weak Castiel's Grace was. Doing something this stupid could have killed him!"

"There were following someone else." Aziraphale realises this after a closer look, and with a sinking heart, recognises the faded colour/taste/scent of that particular, famous Grace. "An Archangel. Anael, it must be."

Crowley curses, something demonic that sizzles when it hits the air. "What if the Winchesters don't come back? What if they get stuck there? Samael's not going to be pleased with us if we lose them in the past."

"We'll know soon enough," Aziraphale says. "If they are coming back, it will be to a point not long after they left. We should wait. I wouldn't want to try going after them."

"No," Crowley says, the lizard-slit pupils of his eyes narrowing behind his sunglasses. "But I'd rather that than pissing Samael off."

It is at that point that the tear pulses with a strange, multi-dimensional throb that strains even angelic senses, and with a flash of light, the younger Winchester drops onto the bed. Aziraphale veils them from his sight with a startled snap of his Grace, and not a little relief. The boy coughs, blinking rapidly and grasping at his stomach as though expecting to find something other than multiple layers of shirts and smooth skin beneath. Collecting himself, he rolls of the bed, looking around him wildly.

"Dean?" he says, his eyes wide and panicked. "Dean?"

"Well, that's one of them at least," Crowley says, his head turned so that the quiet words just ghost past Aziraphale's ear. "Tall bastard, isn't he. He looked smaller on the DVD."

Within moments there is another flash, and Dean Winchester joins his brother, stumbling slightly as he lands. The feeling of the Grace is powerful, but not quite the same as the one which set the trail into the past. It cuts down the number of candidates considerably, and none of them are exactly good news. Not to mention that Castiel is still missing.

"We should go," Crowley says, as Dean grabs his brother into a hug, running his own hands over that same spot on his stomach. Aziraphale wonders exactly what happened before the pair of them were sent back. Still, Crowley is right. They might be invisible to human eyes, but Castiel will see them easily if, _when_ he comes back. He thinks the latter with deliberate force. The Principality has proven to be very hard to kill in the past, and he has to have hope that he'll be okay.

"Very well," he says. "But we should pay Castiel a visit once he makes his way back. Find out what really went on here."

"Fine, whatever." Crowley rolls his eyes a little, but they leave the brothers to their own devices and return to their current cheap motel.

* * *

><p>Secluded in his own Creation, he has power independent of his Name, the power of a Creator untainted by the Grigori's actions. Thus is it any wonder he prefers to spend his time here while he waits? However Samael will acknowledge it has its downsides, as is aptly shown when he steps back into Yahweh's world and feels the echoes in the fabric of the universe, the fraying hole torn by angelic power forcing itself through time. This place is tattered enough as it is, it does not need any more help to hasten its end.<p>

Samael searches out Crowley and Aziraphale, winging to their side with swift beats. They are currently keeping their watch from a small room in a motel, rank with the psychic imprints of the least of humanity. He takes them by surprise, and while Aziraphale only shows it in the flare of his wings, Crowley leaps to his feet with a sound like a startled rattlesnake. Samael looks at him, allowing amusement to show on his face.

"I ssssuppose you're here about the Winchester's recent trip to the past," the demon says, sitting back down. "Well, don't worry. They're back. They're fine."

"Then perhaps you would like to fill me in on the details."

"We spoke to their pet angel," Crowley says, scowling. "He approached Aziraphale a week ago to ask for our help in protecting the Winchesters, but apparently he didn't want to ask for an assist this time in case we agreed with Anael's plan." He pauses, clearly waiting for some words of condemnation, presumably for making contact when they were only meant to watch. Well, it matters little. Samael gestures for him to continue.

"She decided that everything would be solved if the Winchesters had never existed. So she went back in time to try and kill their parents."

It's not actually the worst plan he has ever heard off. Now that Yahweh is out of the picture, a great many of the old rules are no longer applicable. With no great Plan to keep to, it may actually be possible to change the past. However that course of action would not restore his Name, so he is glad it never came to pass.

"I presume from the continued existence of this timeline that she failed," he says.

"So it would seem," Azriaphale says. "I am told that your brother Michael stepped in to save them. And to tell Dean Winchester that he must agree to be his vessel."

"That doesn't sound like Michael." In fact, unless Michael travelled back after them, it is impossible for him to have done anything of the sort, since at that point he was imprisoned in Sandalphon's pocket world, chained, tortured, and used to create Nephilim after Nephilim. No, he cannot see Michael having anything to do with such a foolish plot as this. If he wanted the world's end, he knows he need only wait for it to unravel, and if he wanted the Throne, he knows Lucifer would let him have it.

"All I know is that someone powerful enough to take down Anael did all that, and they were calling themselves Michael."

Of course, if the Grigori and their allies have someone taking his role in this little shadow theatre, they would need someone to play his brother's part. Of the Archangels, only Raphael and Zachariah remain, and he does not think the youngest of the Seven is powerful enough to kill their sister, even in her apparently weakened state. So.

"I think Raphael a more likely choice."

"Surely not!" Aziraphale looks quite put out by this. The angel is – or was, depending upon how one looks at it – of his Garrison. Some streak of loyalty must yet remain within him.

"Raphael hasn't been the Healer for millennia. He is the greatest power left in the Silver City, and I think it likely he sees bringing the End as his responsibility. In any case, I will have to speak to the Winchesters personally to be sure."

"Sssso are you ready to tell us the next stage of your plan?" Crowley asks, hissing slightly with obvious nervousness.

"Not quite," Samael says, finding himself a little amused. For all the demon's cowardice – or acute sense of self-preservation, as _he_ would more likely call it – he's bold enough to ask. He finds it more gratifying at least than the angel's tiresome defiance. "Once I have made contact with the humans, I think it would be best for us to have a... conference, let us say."

"Sssounds good to me," Crowley says quickly, before Aziraphale can speak. From the angel's expression, he's not too pleased about the wait. Truly, it is a pity that Samael has to ally himself with others to regain his Name. He prefers to work alone, and of all the others he has associated himself with over the years, he has only been truly fond of Mazikeen. However, it must be said that these two are more bearable than many.

"Then I shall call for you when the time comes," he says.

He leaves them to their task, and goes to make his own preparations.

* * *

><p><strong>18.<strong>

The brothers are easy enough to find with the tracking sigil leading his way. He watches them dig their way down to old, haunted bones from the outskirts of the graveyard, considering how best to approach them. Directly seems unwise, as it will most likely be met with violence and mistrust. No, he will work his way up to a proper meeting, finding ways to win, if not their trust, then at least a willingness to listen to him. They have reason to be wary. For now he decides merely to watch them, gain some sense of their possible reactions to him. He lights a cigarette to amuse himself while he waits, expecting a dull few hours.

It is at that point the undead begin to rise. Samael recognises the mark of power upon them, the Horseman Death holding back his scythe from the animus within and letting rotting flesh walk. He considers for a moment stepping in, but at this point it would look too coincidental to be believable. No, better he stay back for now, and take the opportunity to see how well these humans fight.

He is not disappointed by their effectiveness. Despite being caught unawares and without much of their armament, the pair set about them with the heavy blades of their shovels, working in concert to bring the creatures down and behead them. There are not more than a score of the dead, what seems more of a taunt than any serious threat, but that number is still enough to be dangerous. The hunters have them dealt with in just over a minute.

The older brother, Dean, wipes remnants of rotting flesh from his face with a look of disgust, turning to his brother. They converse with quiet words, but it is no great difficulty for him to hear them, even at this distance. It seems they too have realised that this attack was Death's work, and plan to consult their angel about it at the closest opportunity.

As the pair begin to make their way back towards the cemetery gates, he makes his decision and allows himself to become visible to human eyes. If they are aware of his existence and the fact that he is watching them, any further appearances or efforts to help them will be more easily explained.

Sam Winchester is the first to see him, nudging his brother and turning his attention to his position in the shadow of the trees. They don't seem too sure what to do about him. He supposes they aren't used to beings who don't attack them on sight.

"Fuck this," Dean Winchester says, after a moment. "I'm going to see what he wants."

There is his cue to leave. The seed has been planted, the first step complete. Now he must wait for an opportunity to present itself.

* * *

><p>The first thing Dean does the next morning, after sending Sam out for breakfast, is call Castiel. The Enochian carved into their ribs has done a pretty good job of hiding them until now, and change, considering it's the Apocalypse and all, isn't a good thing. Dean wants to know if the sigils have actually stopped working, or if the whole thing was just a coincidence. Yeah, he wouldn't put money on it being the last one. But it's bad enough that they ran into Michael in the 70s without the smug bastard showing up to bleat destiny at him in the here and now. Luckily Castiel picks up after the first ring.<p>

"Cas," Dean says. "We need to talk. Get your feathered butt over here right now."

"I don't know why you persist in using these metaphors when you are aware that the view of angel's wings being similar to birds is merely your own limited perception..."

"Cas!" Dean cuts him off sharply. They've not seen him since getting back from 1978, and he had flapped off pretty quick after recovering from his collapse. Dean's not afraid to admit he's a little bit worried about him after that. If he's using this as an excuse to check up on him, well, so be it. "We've got a problem here. We need your help."

There is a pause, then, "Tell me where you are Dean."

Dean gives him the address and room number of their shitty little motel, and with the noise of wings, there Castiel is. Dean would never admit it, but it's good to see him. Even cut off from Heaven Cas knows his shit, and he's pretty good in a fight. It's nice to know they're not alone on Team Free Will.

"There was an angel watching us in the cemetery last night," he says, folding his arms across his chest. "Is there any way that dick Zach could have found a way past your carvings or something?"

Cas gets this weird look on his face, almost like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or whatever the angelic equivalent to that would be. "It should not have been possible for an angel to find you," he says finally. "Describe this being to me."

"Well we didn't get a good look at him," Dean says. "But he vanished into thin air, and as far as I know only dicks with wings have that little power."

"He was alone?"

"Yeah. Why, are we at risk of more turning up?" Dammit, as if they didn't have enough to worry about.

Cas does his head tilt-y thing, and his eyes rake over Dean's body in a way that makes him feel kind of uncomfortable, like he's looking at him naked or something. He's about to make some kind of protest about it when the angel speaks. "The sigils are still working. I will investigate, but it may have been a coincidence."

"There's no such thing in our line of work buddy." And especially since Cas is acting so squirrely about it.

"The rising was the work of a Horseman. Since you and Sam are often in the vicinity of these events, perhaps Zachariah has decided to attempt to find you by having a... stake-out."

Now that's not a pleasant thought at all, Dean thinks sourly. But it sounds all too possible, and actually he's kind of surprised neither side has thought of it before now. He sighs audibly. "So what now? We can't _not_ get tangled up in these things, it's part of the job. We can't afford to have angels and demons on our tails every time we go near something freaky."

"We do not have enough information yet Dean," Cas says, calm as ever. "I will accompany you on your next hunt and see who this angel is working for. In the meantime..." He twists his hand in a peculiar way, and the angel-killing blade drops into his hand, "take this for protection."

"Yeah, okay," Dean says, reaching out for it carefully. "I'll go check in the trunk for more holy oil when Sam gets back."

"Good," Cas says, and then he's gone again, the sound of his wings loud in the silence. Dean slumps down on the bed, holding the knife up to eye level. They're fighting this thing with the equivalent of sharpened sticks, but what else can they do? Even if it's hopeless, Team Free Will has to keep fighting on. It's the only option.

* * *

><p>The next hunt is Death's work as well, a little town in the middle of Ohio where there has been a wave of suspicious heart attacks, RTAs and inexplicable deaths from 'natural causes'. The guy is fucking everywhere they turn, he swears, but at least it isn't zombies again. He's fucking sick of zombies. True to his word, Cas is with them, armed with another angel sword from somewhere or other, though Dean doesn't want to ask where he got it.<p>

It turns out the Horseman is already on the road by the time they get there, but there's a crowd of demons to take care of who were tagging along in his wake like sick little groupies, and that's not exactly going to be an easy task. There must be about thirty of them for a start, and Cas is still weak after the time travelling, or so he tells them, so it looks like they're going to be doing this the old fashioned way. For all that things have been a bit rough around the edges lately, the three of them make a damn good team; Dean with the demon-killing knife, Sam with the Colt, and Cas with his sword and a head full of ancient exorcisms.

They plan is to lure the demons into a trap, but things don't quite go to plan. These sons of bitches are smarter than your average hell-spawn, and so it turns into pitched battle in the streets. The three of them are more than holding their own though, putting the demons down quickly and efficiently, Sam taking headshots from the cover of a parked car while Dean and Cas watch his back and deal with the ones who get too close. Everything seems to be going well until the big fucker rushes Dean.

It happens fast; there's a sudden surge as a whole group of demons charge them at once, and Dean finds himself cut off from Sam and Castiel, barely holding his own against this monster of a man, easily as tall as his brother and built like a tank, strong enough to take his head off even before he got possessed. The fucker backs him up against the side of a building, brandishing one motherfucker of a knife, and lunges at him. Dean twists, stabbing at his side with the demon-killing knife, but the big bastard blocks it with his free hand, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until he's forced to drop the weapon. For a moment he thinks he's in real trouble, the machete heading straight towards his stomach, when a solid body slips in between them, taking the knife to the gut without a flinch. The stranger grabs the demon by the throat and burns it out with a nonchalant elegance, a single finger to the forehead. It's a flare of crackling power, half blinding him. Dean blinks his vision clear.

"Holy fucking shit," he says, almost shaking with how close that was. He looks up at the man, and the recognition is instant. It's the angel from the cemetery. The angel turns to face him, dropping the faintly smoking corpse carelessly like it weighs nothing. In the light, Dean can finally get a good look at him. He has unruly strawberry blonde hair and he's wearing all black, something that looks expensive, not that Dean's really the guy to judge that. And. And he's got fucking _yellow eyes_. Dean tenses, but that demon is long dead, and it's not the same kind of yellow anyway. That was sick and sulphurous, and it didn't have a pupil. This guy has eyes like fire, like molten gold.

"You should be more careful Dean Winchester," the angel says, his voice dark and warm like velvet, sending a shiver up Dean's spine. "This isn't the first life-debt you owe me." And then he's gone again, not giving Dean the chance to ask who the fuck he is, or what the fuck he's on about.

He's just fished Ruby's knife out of the gutter when Sam comes running up brandishing the Colt, Cas at his heels. The rest of the demons, as far as he can see, are dead or gone, bodies littering the street.

"Nice fucking timing Sammy," he says, stepping over the burned out guy. "You get a read on that angel Cas?"

"Wait... he was here?" Sam asks, at the same time as Cas nods, and grabs their shoulders to zap them out of there.

"We will discuss it back at the motel," Cas says, and Dean feels the uncomfortable sensation of compression he always gets when they fly Angel Air, and they're in the room.

"He is not in Zachariah's employ," Castiel tells them as soon as they get their bearings.

Dean stares at him. "Oh yeah?" he says, "how do you know that?"

"Because he is not a full angel. He is... Fallen, or something like it." He looks down, and there's almost something like a flicker of recognition on his face before he hides whatever it was. "I'm sorry I cannot be more precise. But Zachariah would never ally himself with such a being."

"But he's the kind of fallen you and Anna are, right?" Dean asks. "Not the Lucifer kind of fallen."

"I didn't recognise him," Castiel says. "He has not been in Heaven since my birth, or I would have known him."

"But you didn't recognise Gabriel at first," Sam points out.

"That is different," Cas says. "He was hiding his power, masking it as that of a Trickster. This being was doing nothing of the sort. Although he was..." He hesitates, probably searching for the right way to explain tricky angel concepts to clueless humans. "Muted, would be most accurate."

"But you're sure Zachariah didn't send him." Dean isn't actually sure this is a good thing; better the devil you know, after all. The unknown is rarely pleasant for them.

"No. He seems to be a free agent." Castiel doesn't look any happier about it than he is. "Unless..."

Dean gives him a questioning look. "Unless?"

Cas shakes his head. "It is no importance."

Dean is pretty sure it is of importance, but he knows Cas won't tell them anything if he doesn't want to. "He said something to me about owing him a life debt."

The angel looks displeased. "Do you?"

"Cas, I don't even know what that is," Dean says with a certain amount of exasperation. It's been a long day, and he just wants to flop back onto the bed and fall asleep.

"Did he save your life?"

"Well, yeah, I guess."

Sam rounds on him. "What? You didn't say anything about that!"

Dean rolls his eyes at him. "What, you thought that burnt out demon at my feet just dropped dead by itself?"

"I thought you stabbed it with the knife."

Castiel gives them both his I-am-very-disappointed-in-you look. They shut up. "You owe him a debt for saving you. The usual terms are a life for a life, but you are obligated to pay him back in any way he chooses. Usually you would save his life, but I do not see how you could, in this case, being human."

Dean shifts uncomfortably. "That doesn't sound good."

"That depends on what he asks of you. You are mortal, so it cannot be anything too unreasonable."

"Well great," Dean says in disgust. Next to him Sam sighs.

"There's no way to get out of it?" he asks.

"Only by paying it, otherwise Dean's life would be forfeit."

"Why does this shit always happen to me?" Dean says to the heavens. "I must have been a real bastard in a past life."

"You mean all the time," Sam says, smirking. Dean whacks him lightly on the back of the head.

"Everyone in the fucking car," he growls. "We can deal with it in the morning."


	4. Chapter 4

**19.**

The third time the angel shows up, about a week later, Castiel is out looking for God again. Dean is still feeling a little down about it when they get back to the latest motel. He was hoping they would at least be able to spend a little more time with the guy before he left. Sam is picking up on the bad mood too, so he thinks they can be forgiven for not noticing straight away that they are not alone.

"Good afternoon," the fallen angel says, making them jump, and reach for the nearest weapon. Not that realising who it is makes them relax any, even though their guns and knives aren't going to be worth jack squat against this guy.

"What the fuck do you want?" Dean says. His nose twitches with the sharp smell of cigarettes. The angel is smoking, lurking in the corner of the room like a very high class sort of stalker, a glass of something blood red on the windowsill beside him. Dean's pretty sure they didn't have that ashtray earlier, or the wine. He's just not sure if the angel brought them from somewhere else, or if he can materialise objects like Gabriel. He hopes it's the former. He doesn't like the idea of owing anything to something with as much power as an Archangel.

"To talk." Their supernatural stalker blows a smoke ring at him.

"About this life-debt crap, right." Dean glares at him. "You could at least tell us who I'm going to be paying it too."

He smiles tightly. "That's not such a simple question at the moment. But for now call me Samael."

"Samael." Sam repeats the name slowly. "As in, the Angel of Death?"

"Dude, what?" Dean says, at the same time as Samael replies, "That depends on whom you ask. But I suppose they did call me that once, a very long time ago."

"And you think we're going to trust a guy who says he's the Angel of Death?" Dean says.

"I don't require your trust. I do require your help. I don't think you'll object though. Our interests align in this matter. We both want to stop the Apocalypse."

"Oh yeah," Dean says warily. "And how are we going to do that?"

Samael flicks his cigarette away. It disappears into thin air before it hits the ground. "So far your plans to stop... Lucifer have not been very successful." Dean doesn't miss the slight hesitation before the devil's name. His glance at Sam shows he saw it too.

"But you've got a plan?" Sam asks hopefully.

"I do," Samael says. "But I need both of you."

"Yeah? Need us for what, exactly?" This guy might have technically saved his life, but that's no reason to just go ahead and trust him.

"A ritual which will bring Lucifer down." The angel looks at him, and there's something deadly serious in his golden eyes. Dean gets the sudden feeling that this is not someone he wants to mess around with. "What I am offering you is the chance to save humanity and prevent the End of Times from coming about. I will not pretend this path will be without pain for you, but from all I have seen you do not have another plan to choose from."

"That's not entirely true," Sam says. "Our friend Castiel thinks that if we can find God, maybe we can get him to step in and stop all this."

The angel looks like he's barely holding back a laugh. "Yahweh has left the universe," he says. "And even if he had not, what makes you think the old bastard would do anything but what he wanted to?"

"Suppose we decide to believe you," Dean says, exchanging glances with Sam. He trusts Castiel, he does, but every single angel they meet tells them God isn't around anymore. Maybe Cas is wrong. "What happens next?"

"Next I meet your angel," Samael says. "And you meet a few of my allies. I do not feel like explaining myself more than once. In any case, I believe your friend already knows mine."

And with this mysterious pronouncement, he disappears. Dean curses quietly. They still know hardly anything about what this 'ritual' involves, and he's really not sure they ought to be going along with some plan they know basically nothing about. He scrubs a hand across his face, feeling very tired. He _wants_ to believe. It would be nice to have hope, for once, but until they can talk to Cas about it, he doesn't dare.

"What do you think Sammy?" he asks.

"Honestly?" His brother sighs. "Maybe after all the shit we've been through we deserve a lucky break. I think we should at least hear the rest of what he has to say. We should have some holy oil ready in case he tries to trick us, but I'd like to think we won't need it."

Dean thinks something sarcastic about the power of positive thinking, but he doesn't voice it out loud. "Okay, I'll call Cas," he says. "Knowing angels, this guy will spring this 'meeting' of his on us at the worst possible time, so we'd better be prepared."

* * *

><p>Making the decision as to which is of higher importance, the on-going search for his Father or the meeting with this new, strange angel, is not an easy one for Castiel, but he finally comes to the conclusion that the latter is the more pressing concern. Allies are few to be found, and after millennia of sharing everything with his Garrison, of fighting evil with his brothers and sisters at his back, it is painful to be so alone.<p>

Of course, he has Dean, and he has Sam, but for all the great and deep love he holds for them, they are only human. They cannot sing together, cannot brush their wings and Graces together in friendship and affection. Anna is gone, dead, having proven a less trustworthy ally than he had hoped. Aziraphale and his Fallen friend are still mostly unknown variables. Perhaps this newest addition to 'Team Free Will' will be able to help him, however small the aid.

That pair had spoken of another helping them, and he cannot help but wonder if this is the being they were referring to. He cannot imagine there are many others of angelic or formerly angelic descent that would be willing to go against the powers of Heaven and Hell, to join the side of humanity.

According to Dean the angel gave his name as Samael, which is possible, though it seems unlikely. Castiel will not be able to tell until he meets him whether that is truth or lie. He thinks it must be the latter, for that name is one he has only ever heard spoken in whispers in the Silver City, rumours and scraps of ancient lore. The Angel of Death, one who served their Father in the earliest of days and who has not been seen in eons. One who Fell, perhaps, or left. Castiel is too young, it was long before he was shaped into existence, and his elders do not speak of it. He has never asked. He had never thought it relevant.

The angel did not give them a time for this meeting, so until it happens Castiel remains with the Winchesters. Although he dislikes wasting time he could be using in his search, he enjoys their company, so it is not a hardship. For all that his Grace weakens and he grows closer to human, he does not feel such things as boredom in the way that they do. He would be content to merely sit in Dean's presence and contemplate the intricacies of his soul, but Dean has told him that is 'creepy', so he takes part in their activities instead.

When the time comes all the warning he is given of their new allies' arrival is the sound of three pairs of wings, something perceived in an instant of time too small for human conception. Sam and Dean are used enough to the ways of angels that their reactions of surprise are small and controlled despite the abrupt entry, but as they turn to greet them, Dean with sarcasm ready on his lips, Castiel realises he already knows two of them.

"I am glad to see you are well, Castiel," Aziraphale says, his hands folded primly in front of his tweed jacket, regarding him with a small, fond smile.

Dean turns to him, looking surprised and incredulous. "You _know_ these guys Cas?"

"I have spoken with Aziraphale before," Castiel says, "and with his companion. He mentioned they had another ally, but I... hadn't made the connection." He examines the other being as he speaks. With his Grace diminished, his senses are not as sensitive as they once was, but the more he sees, the more willing he is to believe that this really is the one known as Samael. There is something very old about him, something ancient and powerful lurking behind his golden eyes. Almost demonic eyes. Again he has the sense of something not quite Fallen, or Fallen in a way different to anything he has felt before.

"You didn't think to mention you had a couple of angel buddies who could be helping us out in a fight?" Dean asks, sounding hurt. It is that hurt more than any sense of guilt that makes Castiel wince. He had no intention of causing Dean pain.

"Please, don't blame him," Aziraphale says. "He had no reason to trust us until he had no other choice."

"Yeah," his companion agrees, "and I'm not exactly an angel." He slides his sunglasses down far enough to show sulphur-yellow eyes, slitted like a serpent. Dean's hand goes to the Colt, Sam's to Ruby's knife.

"You're a demon!"

Samael speaks for the first time. "He is one of the Fallen," he says, sounding impatient.

"The name's Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley." He grins, and bows slightly.

"Really?" Sam says. "Because we know a demon named Crowley, and you aren't him."

"I let him use my name. I mean, by Hell's rules he's practically family."

Dean looks suddenly ill. His grip tightens around the gun still in his hand. "You broke him. You son of a bitch, you're the one that broke him, who tortured him and made him into a demon in the first place."

Crowley's smile takes on an edge of nervousness, and Castiel can see the emotion reflected in his wings, that slight drawing inwards, an infinitesimal shudder. "That was over four thousand years ago," the Fallen says. "And I didn't exactly enjoy it even then."

"You really expect us to believe that?" Dean says. "You really think we're going to agree to work with-" With a sharp movement of Samael's hand, his voice cuts off mid-sentence.

"Enough," Samael says. "I didn't come here to speak to squabbling children."

The loop of subtle Grace is tight round Dean's throat. Castiel stiffens and takes a step forwards, readying his sword to drop into his hand if necessary. _No-one_ is allowed to hurt Dean. "Release him," he says. "You need us for your plan. We do not need you. There is still time to find our Father."

"Yahweh is _gone_," Samael says, his wings bristling in irritation. "He has left this universe. You may search until the last thread of it unravels, but you will not find him."

"Then explain who brought me back into existence, if it was not our Father. Explain who brought Sam and Dean from Lucifer's place of rising to the aeroplane and saved their lives." He _will not_ lose faith, not now, not after so much.

"Easy enough," his feathers smooth down as he regains control of himself. "I had Aziraphale and Crowley rescue your charges that day, though I was not... in time... to prevent those events from unfolding. And as to the former..." He strides closer, and his hand comes up to hold Castiel's jaw in place as their eyes meet.

It is like looking into the sun – though for an angel, that means something very different than it would to a human. It is a hypnotic and mesmerising experience, admiring the power and heat and beauty of one of God's great creations. Castiel finds himself lost, drawn in, only vaguely aware of the vessel he wears going limp, and Dean's panicked shouts, seeming to echo from so very far away. Samael looks into him, and he trembles.

And then it is over, and he comes back to himself, Dean's arms tight around him holding him up, rough voice in his ear saying, "Cas, Cas," over and over again, "please tell me you're okay."

"I'm… fine." He is a little surprised to find out that this is true. Whatever Samael did to him, it hasn't hurt him, although he feels a little… fuzzy. Hollowed out and ragged around the edges.

"What did you do to him?" Dean says sharply. Castiel feels his body shift next to him, so he knows he must be turning to look at Samael.

"I merely took a closer look at his Grace," the almost-Fallen angel says, perfectly calm. Many of Castiel's brothers and sisters like to claim such unemotional poise, but he has learned over the past months that contact with humans quickly breaks this façade. Not so for Samael, it would seem. "It is true he was resurrected, but not by Yahweh's hand. No, I know the touch of that power. Michael Demiurgos, eldest of the Seven."

He has no reason to believe this is the truth, yet something in him splinters, tears, falls apart at the mere utterance of those words, said with such easy assurance. He could not tell how, yet he knows, simply _knows_, that it is no lie.

His Father did not do this.

His Father has abandoned him.

His Father is gone.

He hears the choking sob that breaks out of him as though from very far away, bitter as wormwood and thick with anger. He wraps his faded, tattered wings around him and closes his eyes tight against the tears that threaten to come. He will not take refuge in denial, no matter how much he might wish to. His faith is empty, a useless broken thing. He should have listened to what his brothers have been telling him.

"Cas?" Dean's voice comes from somewhere nearby, soft and attempting comfort. Then, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"

Warm wings join his own, accompanied by a somewhat pudgy body and the mingled scent of parchment and frankincense. "Oh Castiel," Aziraphale says. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

It helps, having a little something still of Heaven surround him. The angel is the only one in the room who could provide it, the only one who has Grace yet untainted, who feels like the Silver City and the favour of… he would have said their Father, but perhaps it is just the faint remainder of it.

If he was not Fallen before, truly, he wishes to be now.

* * *

><p><strong>20.<strong>

After Castiel's minor breakdown the meeting is rather subdued. Crowley can't remember his own Fall, so many ages ago, but that doesn't mean he can't have sympathy for such a drastic break of faith. For that is what makes an angel Fall in the end. Turning away, the destruction of their faith in whatever form it takes; be it in their Father, in the Ineffable Plan, in their Garrison, or in their brothers and sisters.

Castiel pulls himself together eventually. After Aziraphale has given him about all the support any being could take, he unwraps himself from the angel's embrace and allows his human to fuss over him. Crowley would have to be blind not to see the depths of feeling between the pair, though between Castiel's failure at comprehending human emotions and the hunter's heteronormative façade he doubts they've acted on it yet. For a moment he considers giving them a little bit of a push, purely in the interests of promoting the sin of Lust, of course, but Samael and Aziraphale would both notice and probably disapprove.

Perhaps the devil grows impatient, or more likely he simply doesn't care what effect his revelation has had on the Falling angel, but he begins to speak again.

"Now that we have finally settled that matter, we might move on to more pressing ones. Lucifer, to be exact."

Dean looks ready to object, but his brother, who up until now has been fairly quiet, speaks over the top of him before he can open his mouth.

"So what _is_ your plan?" Sam asks, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder to tell him to cool down. "All you've told us is that we don't exactly have a lot of options here."

"For one thing, although Samuel Colt's gun may not have killed Lucifer, it did drain some of his power." The truth, if only half of it. "If this ritual is to have any chance of success, Lucifer must be as weak as we can make him. That means dealing with the Horsemen."

"Tell us something we don't know," Dean says, sounding resentful. Well, Crowley can't really blame him.

"Yeah, but now you know _why_ it's so important," he says, and regrets it as Dean turns his furious gaze on him instead. In all the excitement he was forgetting that, oh yeah, Alistair's once-upon-a-time protégé is not exactly happy to have him here after he opened his big mouth. That's always getting him into trouble. He really should do something about that.

"Once the Horsemen are dealt with," Samael says, as though there has been no interruption, "We will set up the ritual. Your part in it is simple enough. Once within the binding circle, Sam will invite Lucifer into him. Dean, acting in Michael's place, will cut off his wings with the blade I shall prepare, and then I will strip every last speck of power and essence from that abomination until there is nothing left of him but atoms." The look of controlled power and will on the devil's face is enough to make Crowley quail, and it's not even aimed at him.

There is stunned silence for a moment, and then Sam says, "You want me to what? No. No way. We haven't… _I_ haven't gone through all this just to say _yes_ to that bastard!"

"He will be in your body, yes, but I assure you, he'll have bigger things to worry about than taking control of your mind."

"Look, there has to be another way," Dean says, speaking up in his brother's defence. "No offence, but we've got nothing but your word to go on to say this will even work."

"Did you forget the life debts you owe me?" Samael says, raising an eyebrow in an elegant curve. "Surely you know better than to refuse to repay anything supernatural that has that kind of hold on you."

This makes the human pause, and with good reason. Those kinds of deals are admittedly more of the Sidhe's kind of thing, but Samael can use those ancient bonds as well as any of the Fair Folk. Crowley should have known. The devil may ask nicely, but he always has a back-up plan if you refuse him. If you're very, very lucky, he'll go to someone more willing, but even without knowing for sure Crowley suspects he would be able to count on one hand the number of times _that's _happened.

"Oh, fuck you," Dean says, and beside him Castiel's eyes narrow at the threat towards his charge.

Samael smiles. "I'll give you a little time to think it over then." He nods cordially to them, and then motions to Crowley and Aziraphale. His angel looks as though he'd like to stay and make sure Castiel is alright, but Crowley shoots him a warning look. Considering how well the meeting went – i.e. not very – this isn't the best time to annoy the devil.

They leave.

* * *

><p>It seems like that bastard angel Samael has a different view of what 'a little time' is than Dean was expecting, because they still haven't seen hide nor hair of him or his two yes-men since The Meeting. And yes, it does deserve the capital letters.<p>

Cas has been staying with them since then too, but he's not in the best of shape. Dean has known for a while that his powers weren't as strong as they used to be, but this has really taken the wind out of his sails. He's morose, lethargic, probably depressed… Dean doesn't know what to do. How exactly do you cheer up an angel anyhow? He has tried to show Castiel the best Earth has to offer before, with the brothel, Magic Fingers vibrating beds, food and drink and playing his tapes in the Impala, but although Cas has never objected to any of those things (except the brothel, hoo-boy), Dean has always gotten the impression he was mostly playing alone to humour him.

Speaking of drink, he's worried that Cas might have taken his advice there a little too much to heart. A few slugs of the hunter's helper makes the nights bearable, but there's something about seeing Cas drunk and slurring and defensive that makes him hurt inside in a way he can't really describe. It's just not who Cas is meant to be.

He hopes this latest case might be enough to take the angel's mind off things. It's certainly strange enough. Bobby and his amazing internet search filters caught it in the local paper; the grisly deaths of a young couple who according to the article, ate each other alive. Some kind of cannibalistic suicide pact, the reporter believes, but Dean knows from experience how unlikely _that_ is. Nope, this sounds more like possession, though whether it's ghost or demon is up in the air at this point.

"I'll take Cas with me to check out the bodies," he says, as he and Sam change into their best – and only – suits.

"That's probably for the best," his brother says. "He's not exactly good at acting normal at the best of times." Normally Dean would take offence at this, but he has to admit Sammy is right. Cas isn't... doing well.

"I guess I'll talk to him." For Cas, Dean would be willing to brave a thousand chick-flick moments. Besides, he knows from experience what it's like to have your Dad abandon you, even though it must be far, far worse for an angel.

Anyway, they came here to do a job, and even if he can only manage to give Castiel a purpose again for a few days, that's got to be better than nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>21.<strong>

Sam can still taste the blood at the back of his mouth, hot and surprisingly sweet, sulphurous to the scent but not to the tongue. He had forgotten how good it was, how right, how it sang once it hit his stomach and rushed out into his veins in a surge of intoxicating power. The way it seemed to open up new pathways in his brain, throw the world into sharper focus, let him see things that the rest of humanity were blind to. It was glorious, and once it was gone all he wanted was to feel it again.

With Famine making the thirst worse than it had ever been, even at the height of his addiction, he had felt like some kind of monster, everything in him narrowed down to that one point, the slow and steady beat of a demon's heart. Killing the two Famine had sent had been easy, something instinctive and predatory taking him over, forcing him to sink his teeth through flesh, seeking that dark flood of liquid ecstasy. He wonders, now, if that's how vampires feel when they turn.

Looking back, even though everything worked out for them, it so easily could have ended in disaster. Perhaps they should have taken the chance to call Samael and his companions for help, but things had happened so quickly, and anyway Dean still blamed the fallen angel for breaking Castiel's last shred of faith and hope, and Sam can't blame him for that. Given a choice, he wouldn't go near Samael, but it had been made pretty clear that there _was_ no choice.

Now that they have Famine's ring, the great aching pit of want that had filled him has gone. He's still high on the blood though, still seeing those extra parts of the world laid over the top of normal sight, supernatural energy, the ghost shapes of Castiel's Grace when he looks at him. He knows what that means. He's fallen off the wagon, drunk more than he ever has before, and there's nothing for it but to come off it cold turkey.

The last time he had tried anything of the sort it had not been of his own free will. Bobby and Dean had trapped him in the panic room, and while he can admit now that it was for his own good, it isn't an experience he wants to repeat. But it looks like he has no choice. He won't go back to being that person. He can't.

* * *

><p>Knowing the basics of Samael's plan takes a surprising weight off Aziraphale. The lack of information has been wearing on him, but he hadn't before realised quite how much. He likes to know things; it is part of who he is, a scholar, a collector, and although he has great faith in the Ineffable, of an underlying sense of order to the universe, that does not mean he likes to follow orders blindly.<p>

Admittedly the devil has not given them the details of this ritual he plans to pull off, but Aziraphale doesn't doubt his word when he says it is possible. After all, this is to get his Name back; he has no reason to lie, and it is said the Adversary always preferred to lead others astray through the selective use of nothing but the truth.

The truth can be cruel. Speaking it so bluntly to Castiel had been cruel. Better to have led him up to the realisation gradually, give him something else to put his Faith in, to sustain him where this would not. Castiel's Fall has not been like so many of their brothers' and sisters', over in an instant, a meteoric descent to Earth or to the Pit. His Grace did not break off whole, able to be regained at a later date. It has been shedding itself in wisps of energy, returning itself to the universe, to Creation. Aziraphale wishes… He wishes there was something he could do, some way of helping him, but after everything that has happened, he can't imagine Castiel trusting any angel enough to let them do so.

He thinks Castiel may be fated to become human, a destiny Ineffable. For though their Father might be gone, Aziraphale still has Faith that he has not left them entirely on their own. Prophecy extends for a little while further, still has some power, or all Samyaza's plan would be for nothing. There are still some things that are meant to happen, one last push of a helping hand, an echo of God.

But for all that, it seems poor reward for everything the angel has done.

* * *

><p>Every day he can feel the tatters of his Grace fading, flaking off into the ether without even his Faith to anchor them. Following Dean's example when it comes to dealing with wounds too painful to bear, Castiel goes down to the liquor store on the corner with one of Dean's credit cards. He recalls the last time he drank alcohol; that it had taken much more than it would a human just to feel even the slightest effect on his vessel. He had more of his Grace remaining then, so it may take less now. He buys six bottles of whiskey to begin with, just to be sure, and when that doesn't work, he goes back for more, and then more again.<p>

It takes some hours, and at midnight the store closes, the proprietor forcibly removing him from the premises. After the man has left it is easy enough to unlock the door again and return to his drinking. It requires perhaps half of what the liquor store has in stock, to dull the world, to make it fuzzy around the edges, strange and unbalanced. Castiel might have found this objectionable once, but he can't bring himself to care. He thinks it helps. It is at least harder to feel the empty ache inside where his Grace should be; the hollowed-out feeling of hopelessness, of abandonment. He understands the purpose of drunkenness now in a way that would have been impossible before. He will have to thank Dean for giving him this wisdom.

He will not risk the remains of his wings flying in this state, and indeed, the walk back to the motel through the darkness and the harsh yellow of the streetlights is oddly soothing. The cold does not touch him, and it feels almost like being himself again. His thoughts are calm, soporific, and after the despair of the past few days, that is a great kindness.

He does his best to be quiet coming back into the hotel room, not wanting to wake Sam and Dean. It takes him far too long to notice the smell of blood in the air, sharp and cloying and too familiar. He fumbles for the light switch, his hands clumsy in a way he has not experienced since the first few moments in this body, when he was still learning how to control nerves and muscles and joints, and when the bulb bursts into life he has to narrow his eyes and blink rapidly. It is human, too human a reaction.

It is easy to see now that something has gone very wrong. Not demons, or angels, for even now he would be able to sense the echo their presence leaves behind. Blood paints the walls, shotgun splatter, and there are no souls still flickering within the cooling bodies that lie sprawled on top of the bedsheets.

It is with a cold heart that Castiel realises what this means. Sam and Dean are dead, and in Heaven's grasp. Zachariah has just been handed exactly what he wanted.

* * *

><p><strong>22.<strong>

Aziraphale is startled out of the warm embrace of Crowley' arms by the insistent call of a summoning. He recognises the signature from a previous event; it is Castiel, and judging by the sense of urgency he has given the spell, something very bad has just happened.

"Crowley… _Crowley_," he says, shaking his lover awake. "I'm afraid we may have something of a problem."

"Hnnn." Crowley blinks sleep from his eyes, the thin clear membranes of his second set of eyelids sliding across lazily. "Angel?"

"Castiel is calling, my dear."

"Oh… Why? They jussst took down Famine, sssurely they don't have a lead on Pessstilence yet?" Aziraphale will never tell him for fear of hurting his pride, but he is very fond of the way he hisses when he is sleepy.

"I think it's rather more serious than that. They may need our help."

Crowley grumbles in protest, trying to burrow down into the sheets, but Aziraphale tugs them away, tickling his sensitive belly with the pinions of his wings. Crowley yelps despite himself, and nearly falls out of bed.

"Low blow, angel, low blow," he says, but Aziraphale can tell he isn't truly angry. The demon composes himself and gets up, conjuring clothes for himself as he does so. "I suppose we should go and see what has our recently Fallen friend so flustered."

Aziraphale smiles. Much as Crowley claims the side of Hell, he can always be counted on to do the right thing when it really matters.

* * *

><p>The Winchester brothers do seem to have a gift for getting themselves into the most inconvenient situations, Aziraphale thinks, looking over the pairs' empty bodies. It makes sense that Heaven would have jumped at the chance to get these two somewhere they can influence them, somewhere they can persuade them to go along with their Apocalyptic plan.<p>

"I'm afraid there is no other option," he says. "I'll have to go and fetch them out."

"What!" Crowley is glaring at him. "Heaven might not know we're working against them, but if they ssspot you doing this, it's going to be pretty bloody obvioussss."

"If we cannot get them back, everything is lost," Castiel says, who for now has set aside his melancholia for determination, although it is not quite enough to dispel the lingering effects – and pungent odour – of alcohol. For politeness' sake, Aziraphale is choosing to ignore that for now.

"I do intend to be careful my dear, don't worry," the angel says, trying to reassure his lover. "I'll be in and out before they can notice me."

"You'd better," Crowley says, and Aziraphale cannot resist kissing him – on the forehead, for Castiel is here – before he leaves. He tries not to give thought to how risky this might really be. It is simply something that needs to be done.

* * *

><p>The Silver City feels somehow diminished on his arrival, not as warm or as loving as it once was. He supposes that without the presence of God in the Primum Mobile it is inevitable that the workings of the City should slow and fail. Independence has not been much of a heavenly attribute since the Fall, which removed most of his siblings who could be said to have that quality. He knows he personally learned it from humans, a consequence of his long stay on Earth. It is not that angels do not have Free Will, else they would be incapable of Falling, but that they have no real conception of how to use it. Is it any wonder Raphael has led them to this?<p>

Human souls are not kept in the City, but in the multitude of Heavens nearby, wrapped in individual dimensions in fractal patterns that nest one on top of the other in dizzying splendour. It requires some thought to detach himself from human form, for it has been millennia since it was last necessary, but at last his atoms slide loose from one another until he is nothing but Intent, and Grace, and Will. A heavenly being in the purest sense. Like this it is possible to leap from star to star, to frolic in the deep empty wastes of space as they once did when Creation was young. But he should not let himself become caught up in memories... He has a task here that is best accomplished quickly.

Finding Sam and Dean in the multitudes is no easy feat. There are as many worlds here as there are dead souls, and no real way to tell them apart. Somewhere there are angels whose job it is to monitor the human heavens and keep track of them, but before his assignment to Earth, they had never held any interest to Aziraphale. There had not been many back then. Just two, waiting for the first of God's new-born children.

His search leads him at last to one heaven in particular, centred on a worn yet homely bar. There is something rather strange about the whole set-up, though he can't quite put his finger on it. Something unusual about the warp and weft of the little universe. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem dangerous, and he can feel the presence of the Winchesters nearby. The sigils hiding them were on their human bodies. Their souls have no such protection.

He remoulds himself back into human form outside the door, and knocks politely, once, twice, three times. Silence. He waits for someone to answer, and when there is still no movement from the souls inside, he knocks again.

"Sam, Dean," he calls, "it's Aziraphale. Castiel sent me to get you home."

A man with an untidy mullet opens the door. He is about Aziraphale's height, thin and wiry with a suspicious look on his face. Over his shoulder the angel can see Sam and Dean sitting at the bar, peering at him anxiously. Presumably they have already had other angels looking for them. Zachariah certainly wouldn't have wasted any time.

"This your angel?" the stranger asks, looking back for confirmation.

"Yeah," Sam says, "Yeah that's him." He sounds relieved, maybe even more so than Aziraphale would have expected. The man with the mullet looks him up and down, shrugs, and steps aside to let him in.

"Boy, are we glad to see you," Dean says, waving an unopened beer can in his direction. "I hope you can get us out of here, because let me tell you I am _ready_ to leave."

"That's why I'm here," Aziraphale says, trying to sound as comforting as he can. "We can't afford to let Zachariah or Raphael get their hands on you."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Heaven is supposed to be a happy place for humans, so Aziraphale doesn't know what has him so spooked, but then he doesn't know how close Zachariah might have come to finding them these past few hours. At least he has them now, and so long as he is fast about it, they should be back on earth before the Archangels are any the wiser.

"This may be a slightly bumpy ride," he warns them, and raising his hands, he wraps his Grace around them and flings them out of this reality, into the between space, into the void.

* * *

><p>Dean feels a little queasy when he opens his eyes, but that feeling only gets worse when he realises where they are. It isn't Earth. It can't be, because this is their <em>home<em>, the house back in Lawrence under the blanket of night, and the angel is looking around with an unguarded expression of shock. Yeah. This is bad.

"Honey?" He knows their mother's voice without even having to look, and as painful and bittersweet as it is, he still turns to her. He can't help it. "What are you doing up?"

"That isn't her," Aziraphale says next to him. "It's a construct. A trap. We need to..."

"I know that!" Dean says, "How do we get out of here?"

"Did you have a nightmare?" their mother says, soothing and soft. "Tell me."

"I don't know," the angel says, his voice taking on an edge of fear. "I can't... we're trapped."

"How about I tell you _my_ nightmare Dean?" not-Mary continues, tone not even changing in the slightest. "The night I burned." Blood starts to spread, thick and wet, a gash across her stomach that, though he never saw it in real life, is so horribly familiar. "I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you."

"This is Zachariah's doing," Aziraphale says, "None of it is true. Don't listen." But he has no choice. It isn't even something he'd feared – he knew it was his mother's choice to give up the hunting life; that she had _wanted_ children – but it still hurts. It still cuts into him.

"Look where it got me." Her eyes flash yellow. Demon eyes. Azazel's eyes. All around them he is dimly aware of a grinding noise as the windows and doors disappear, filling with bricks, as though they didn't already know how trapped they were, even the light changing from moonlight to sickly, evil green.

"The worst was the smell. The pain... well, what can you say about your skin bubbling off. But the smell... you know, for a second I thought I left a pot-roast burning in the oven. But," she shrugs, "it was my meat. And then finally, I was dead. The one silver lining... is that at least I was away from you."

"Enough," Aziraphale says, striding forward. For a moment Dean is simply confused – what does the angel think he's going to do? – but then he brings his arm forwards, and it slides through the shade, the ghost, whatever it was, like parting smoke. The thing pretending to be his mother vanishes. "Enough games, Zachariah."

"I'm insulted." The sick son of a bitch appears in front of them, smiling. He knows he has them where he wants them, and Dean can tell he's going to be smug about it. "I put a lot of work into her you know. Mary Winchester is really… quite stunning." If he hadn't learned first-hand how powerful this bastard is, Dean might have let his anger at the slimy insinuation take over, but he reminds himself that it wasn't real. It was just an angel fake-out – not even as solid as a ghost. Not. Real.

"Did you really think you could sneak out of here without me noticing?" Zachariah asks. "Even with your new angel friend." He looks Aziraphale up and down and frowns, looking a little confused. "You know, I don't believe we've met…"

"Let's just get it over with," Dean says quickly, trying to get Zachariah's attention back on them. He trades a quick look with Sam. Aziraphale seems okay for an angel, and he doesn't want him to get hurt trying to save their butts from Heaven. "You torture us for a while, we keep on saying no, you give up and stick us back in our bodies down on Earth."

That much wipes the smile off the dick's face. "You think it's going to be that easy?" It's nearly a snarl. "You think Hell was bad – I'm _worse_. I was on the fast-track after Dad left. It was going to be me and my big brothers ruling the roost, lords of the universe, the new _gods_ once Hell was overthrown once and for all. And then Raphael told me to prepare _you_." He is so focused in his anger he seems to have forgotten Aziraphale is even there. Dean can see the angel inching a blade out of the sleeve of his tweed jacket – he thinks he recognises it as Castiel's, though why he doesn't have one of his own is a mystery.

"Now look at me!" Zachariah says, close enough that Dean can feel a crackling of energy, of Grace, over his skin. "I can't even close a deal on a couple of pathetic, flannel-wearing maggots. So even if you do submit, I'm going to take it out on the pair of you, every last scrap of humiliation you've caused me."

Aziraphale chooses this moment to spring. He's faster than Dean would have expected from the look of him, but it isn't fast enough. Zachariah spins and catches the sword on his arm, where it slashes the fabric of his suit and bleeds a few dribbling sparks of Grace. He snarls, and his hand lashes out, grabbing Aziraphale by the throat and slamming him against the nearest wall.

"Hey!" Sam and Dean move together, darting forward, but Zachariah merely waves his hand at them and they fly backwards, hitting the floor awkwardly.

"But first I suppose I'll deal with this traitor." Fuck. Dean doesn't know how powerful Aziraphale is, but he's no Archangel. He can't get loose, and even if angels don't need to breath, a stranglehold has to be painful. He can see it in Aziraphale's eyes; he knows he's going to die, and he all at once the struggle goes out of them, replace by calm acceptance. Dean supposes he must think it's worth it, to die fighting Heaven.

"You shouldn't have come for us," he says, more to himself than anything. Aziraphale glances at him and Sam and smiles, like he's trying to be reassuring. Zachariah has his own sword now, longer, the green light reflecting off it and making it look like there's poison smeared over the blade. He draws his hand back, ready to strike.

"Excuse me, sir." It's perfectly polite, an elderly, friendly kind of voice, but with a definite hint of steel behind it. Zachariah stops, and turns his head to look at the newcomer, scowling. The angel has the form of a black man dressed in simple, inexpensive clothes, his age indefinable. He could be anywhere from forty to sixty. He looks like a janitor, but then so did Gabriel, once upon a time and under a different name.

"I'm in a meeting." As though people regularly get stabbed during meetings. Well, maybe in Heaven they do.

"You have a visitor."

"What?" Zachariah's hold on Aziraphale loosens a little. The stranger nods, and steps aside, allowing a very familiar figure to step out of the shadows.

"It has been so long since I last visited Heaven," Samael says, as casually as a man ordering a drink. "I thought I might see what you've been doing with the place."

Zachariah goes pale. He almost seems… afraid. "You. How did you…? You're meant to be _dead_."

"Unfortunately for you, I am not so easily killed as that. Now, it looks like you have a few things that belong to me."

"This traitor is yours? He's not even Fallen!"

"Which should tell you something about what you're trying to pull here, brother." Dean wouldn't have thought someone could be so threatening with just a few calm words, but going by the dick-bag Archangel's face, he can. Who _is_ Samael, that even Zachariah, who isn't exactly a lightweight even by Heaven's standards, is scared of him?

"It's not as if you wanted the Throne anyway," Zachariah says, angry. "Why shouldn't we take it? And I _know_ you don't give a damn about those maggots crawling over the face of our Father's Creation."

"Your allies stole my Name and tried to kill me. What did you think I would do?"

"You're too weak to stop us now anyway." He doesn't sound like he believes it. Samael has been keeping his distance up until this point, but now he begins to come closer, his eyes seeming to glow in the shadows. Zachariah's sword snaps up, holding the edge to Aziraphale's throat. "Stop right there."

Samael shrugs, but does as he is told. "You always were arrogant." His eyes flicker over and catch Aziraphale's. "Even a Seraph's power forgotten, may yet recall itself."

Zachariah says nothing for a moment, looking confused, but then he sneers and says, "Is that what passes for a proverb in the Pit?"

"Not quite." Dean doesn't see where it comes from, perhaps pulled straight from the air, but suddenly Samael is holding something big and thin and shining, throwing it into the air – it lands neatly in Aziraphale's outstretched hand. Light blazes forth, bright as the magnesium Dean had once seen burned in High School Science class. He has to throw up a hand to shield his eyes. He can barely make out what's going on, but he sees the sword inscribe a gleaming arc, and Zachariah lets out a sudden, inhuman screech of pain and falls back.

The glare subsides enough for Dean to see Aziraphale, looking dazed, and the Archangel on his knees clutching the stump of his forearm, neatly cut in two with Grace spilling out, mingling its light with the sword's. And then Samael is standing next to him and Sam, his hands closing vice-tight around their arms, and they are gone.

* * *

><p><strong>23.<strong>

Sam doesn't really know what to make of the events of the past few hours. He's not even sure it is possible to talk about hours, if the concept of time even has any meaning in Heaven. The confrontation with Zachariah seems to have wiped all memory of the events preceding it from his brother's head for now, for which he is thankful. He knows how much it must have hurt Dean that all the happy memories of his they saw were of Sam alone, without his family. Yes, those _were_ happy memories, but not all of the ones he has. He can bring a dozen with Dean in them to mind. What they saw in Heaven was not the whole picture, and maybe someone designed it that way. He wouldn't put such a thing past Zachariah. It serves the angels' purposes to try and drive them apart.

When they were returned to the motel room they were by themselves, although Castiel had been waiting for them, keeping watch over their bodies. There was no sign of Samael or Aziraphale, and so no-one to ask about just what had happened to Zachariah. Castiel was more concerned with expressing his happiness that they were both back than worrying about whatever was going on with their allies.

They leave the motel quickly after that. There's blood everywhere, and even in an ask-no-questions kind of place like this, that's not going to go unnoticed. Besides, Dean is champing at the bit to go after the hunters who shot them, wanting revenge. Sam is not so sure. Okay, so Roy and Walt didn't know they would come back, but the fact remains that he and Dean aren't actually hurt. Killing these guys seems like a disproportionate response. But this is Dean they're talking about. He's not going to be swayed by that kind of argument. All that matters is that someone hurt his family, hurt Sam, and that cannot be borne.

Sam sighs to himself. He can't even get Castiel on side. All the angel cares about these days is that they – specifically Dean, Sam isn't stupid – are okay, and Roy and Walt compromised that. He might be on their side, but he can still be a smite-y kind of angel.

He would not want to be those hunters right now.

* * *

><p>When the sword touches his hand, instinct takes over. Since that day six thousand-odd years ago when he had given it up and in so doing changed himself irrevocably, this has happened only once before, on the eve of the last Apocalypse, when he was ready to take it up again in defence of humanity. He does the same thing now. The power flows through him, fuelled by Faith and the Will to do what is right, the Seraph-Flame he has not used in millennia.<p>

Zachariah's Grace is wounded, a deep score that bleeds pain, but it is not fatal. A Seraph's power is great, but they are still lesser than Archangels. For a moment he stands as if in the eye of the storm, the hurricane, the very pillar of fire, and then Samael is there, diverting him away as a stone changes the course of a stream. Earth beckons.

Crowley is waiting for them, pacing their room and clearly on edge, and when Aziraphale appears he flings himself on him in an eager embrace. It is all he can do to get the sword out of the way in time. He blinks and tries to re-focus, his head still blurred and unsteady with a Grace that suddenly seems too big, almost unwieldy. He has forgotten what it was like.

"Zira," Crowley says quietly, pulling back. "Zira, he said something had gone wrong. I thought..."

"I'm fine." It's true. Off balance, but otherwise he is stronger than ever. And yet... The hibernation of his true level of power was not all because of his demotions over the ages from First Sphere down to Third. He had domesticated himself, _humanised _himself. He had been the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, and then he had seen God's new creations and felt compassion, felt overwhelming love. Now, after so long living with them, how could he _not_ have changed?

From God's Flame, to a hearth fire.

"What exactly happened up there angel?" Crowley asks, squinting at him. "You look... different."

Aziraphale doesn't feel quite up to speaking yet, so he simply holds up the sword. The flames have died down now, leaving only flickers along the blade, blue-burning and almost invisible. Crowley looks from it, to Samael watching their reunion quietly, then back to Aziraphale.

"Your sword... But doesn't it belong to War?"

"War owes the Winchesters a debt for releasing Samyaza's binding," Samael says. "The sword was deemed fit payment. Though I imagine you will still give it back after all this is over." He sounds almost annoyed at that.

"Why?" Aziraphale asks, finding his voice at last. "You could have gotten us out of there some other way."

"I don't like to see potential wasted."

That is all he says, and then he leaves, and they are alone. Aziraphale puts the sword down gently on the bed. The flames burn on, not touching the sheets. His wings itch. He can feel them, triple-layered, just waiting to separate for the first time in a very long time. Seraphs have six wings, he has only ever pretended to have two.

"I feel like I should apologise to you," he tells Crowley softly.

"What, for making me worry? Bloody Manchester, I should think so!"

"Well, yes, but that isn't all of it."

Crowley frowns and comes closer. He rests their foreheads together, his hands warm and reassuring at Aziraphale's waist. "What then?"

"I don't know yet," Aziraphale says. "But I have a bad feeling about this."

* * *

><p><strong>24.<strong>

Samael and his minions find them again a week later in Blue Earth Minnesota. It's their first day in town after being picked up by a local patrol of what turned out to be hunters. Surprisingly well informed hunters. There had been the usual kind of growly posturing that Dean is so familiar with after years of growing up in the lifestyle, and then they had been escorted into town to the local motel with the promise of a meeting with the guy in charge at the church the next day. Dean has been waiting for their allies to show up. He has questions for them. _Lots_ of questions, and even the strangeness of finding a whole town full of hunters isn't going to distract him from asking them.

The first thing he notices when they appear is that while Aziraphale seems to be fine and has escaped in one piece, there is something different about him. It's subtle, and he can't really place it exactly, but it's there. Maybe something has changed in his grey eyes – where before they were the warm grey of dyed wool and dove's wings, now it is the colt sleet grey of rain and metal. Or maybe he's letting his imagination run away with him.

"Nice of you to let us know you're alive," he says, as Sam shuts his laptop and looks up with wary interest. "What happened up there anyway?"

Aziraphale hesitates for a long moment. Then he pulls out the third chair at the table – Castiel is sitting on the couch, perhaps because it's comfier or because he's not feeling in the mood to contribute to research right now – and asks, "How much do you know about the Hierarchy of angels?"

Before anyone can say anything, the demon quickly interrupts. "Are you sure you want to tell them this?"

"That is his right," Samael says, then turns slightly to address them. "But I will not be staying to hear it. Crowley and Aziraphale will be staying with you from now on. You get in far too much trouble to be allowed to remain alone."

That's... reasonable. And it would certainly help to have a couple of heavy-hitters hanging around. In any case no-one has any time to protest before the Fallen angel is gone as quickly as he arrived.

Of course once they've recovered from that suddenness, Sam is the one to answer the angel's question. "There was a book called _De Coelesti Hierarchia_ written in the 5th century by a man named Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Bobby has been trying to get a hold of an original copy ever since we first heard that angels were real. We haven't managed to find one, but, uh, there's a Wikipedia page."

"Pseudo what now?" Dean says. "That's got to be the stupidest name I've ever heard." He doesn't really like these kind of discussions, because Sam is a deep, deep well of arcane trivia, and it always leaves him feeling a little stupid.

"He was divinely inspired, although not all of what he wrote was accurate," Aziraphale says. "He grouped the Choirs together by their assigned tasks, not by their levels of power. Admittedly there is not a great difference, except that you have to exchange the positions of Archangels and Cherubim, and put Archangels at the top of the First Sphere."

"I had been wondering about that," Sam says. "I mean, we've _met_ a cherub, and he wasn't exactly what you'd call powerful."

"So what has all this got to do with you suddenly being able to chop Zachariah's arm off?" Dean asks.

"When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he placed a Seraph with a flaming sword at the eastern gate to guard the way back into the garden. That was me." He twists his hand and suddenly there's a sword in it, not the small ones most angels carry but full-sized, plain and workman like, with a halo of pale flames like fox-fire rippling all over it. The sword he had used in Heaven. "And this is the sword."

"You," Sam says, sounding amazed. "You're_ that_ angel?"

Aziraphale smiles slightly. "I suppose that makes me more famous than any of the other angels you've met, save the Seven. That is, the firstborn, the Archangels."

"So if you're a Seraph I guess that makes you pretty powerful," Dean says. So he's famous. So what? Considering they've met Michael and Lucifer, it's not really that impressive. He twists to look over at Castiel, who is watching their conversation silently. He looks unhappy, but then, when doesn't he these days? "So what rank are you, Cas?"

"I was a Principality, before," he says, dead-eyed, and way to go, Dean tells himself, lets remind the fallen angel that he's not an angel any more. It's too late to take it back though. "When I proved myself raising you from Hell I was... promoted... to the rank of Dominion, and assigned Uriel as a partner."

"How exactly do you promote an angel?" Dean asks, confused. "Do they just give you a power boost or something?"

"Much the same way as one is demoted," Aziraphale says. Dean doesn't miss his glace of, what, pity? compassion? towards Cas. "It is possible to separate rank and power. Castiel was being given authority over angels of lower choirs. In time, his Grace would have grown to encompass his new purpose. Angels are defined a great deal by purpose."

"So what about you?" Sam asks. "Why didn't you have that sword before?"

"When Adam and Eve left the garden, they passed by me. It was about to rain for the first time in Eden, and they were cold, and lonely, and Eve was expecting her first child. It didn't seem fair. So I gave them the sword, to keep them warm, and I showed them how to use it to start a fire. And when Metatron the Voice of God came down to ask me what had happened to it, I lied, and said that I had lost it. I didn't realise until afterwards how easy it had been to lie, and what that meant." He smiles, and it is strangely fond. "Being around humans, even for so short a period of time as that... it rubs off on you. So I lied, and I was demoted to the Second Sphere, set as a Dominion to guard over the islands of Britain, though humans hadn't quite made it there at that point."

"So you were on humanity's side even back then," Dean says.

"Yes, I suppose I was," Aziraphale says. "But it was a gradual realisation. We were old even then, and it is difficult for us to change our ways. You must understand that although Genesis is true, for certain values of true, it is not the whole story – your scientists are not mistaken there. There were eons of events and time before humans in their current form came on the scene. Anyway, it was not until the last Apocalypse that Crowley and I truly changed our allegiance to humanity."

"Last Apocalypse?" This time the question comes from Castiel. He is frowning. "What are you talking about. I think I would remember such a thing."

"That would be because of the previous Antichrist," Crowley says with a hint of sarcasm. "You ought to know how powerful _they_ can be. He wiped the whole sequence of events from ever having existed. Only the Archangels and the Dukes of Hell were strong enough to remember. _We_ only remember because we were in the eye of the storm."

Castiel makes a disbelieving sound, but he seems to accept that answer as plausible, so Dean guesses he should too. After all, with everything that they've seen, it would be kind of hypocritical to discount someone _else's_ unbelievable stories.

"So you were getting to the part where getting your sword back from God knows where gave you a massive recharge," he says, motioning for Aziraphale to continue.

"Ah, yes. Well after it was all over there was no proof that Crowley and I had done anything wrong, so I was merely demoted again, this time to a Principality. Somewhat the reverse of your friend. But the point is that in the six thousand years I was a Dominion, I became that purpose, the purpose of a guardian. To a certain extent I encouraged it, by spending so much time amongst humans that I became more and more human in my behaviour. I forgot my power, but it was still there and when Samael threw me the Sword of Eden it all came rushing back."

"So you're a Seraph again. Huh." It is nice to get a straight answer on something for once. "I guess that could come in handy."

"I hope so," the angel says. "After all, we are going to try and keep you out of trouble from now on."

Dean nods, and then something occurs to him. "Hey, what about what Samael and Zach were chatting about up there? About douche-angel's allies having stolen his 'true name' or something."

Aziraphale looks suddenly rather worried. "I'm afraid that's something you're going to have to ask him yourselves."


	5. Chapter 5

**25.**

It's not that Crowley isn't happy for Aziraphale, that he isn't pleased that he's got his full power back; it's just that he can't help but dwell on what his lover had said when he came back from Heaven. That he had a bad feeling about being a Seraph again. So far there's been nothing to suggest that he ought to be worrying, but... he trusts Zira's instincts. He's going to keep his eyes open.

It doesn't help that he also has to keep his eyes open watching the Winchesters. He had anticipated that spending any amount of time with them was going to be a fairly hellish experience in itself, considering that he _is_ a demon, and they _are_ hunters, but so far it's been okay. Mind you, it's only been a day, and they're all off to a meeting with yet _another _hunter in a whole _church_ full of hunters, so he is anticipating a sharp turn for the worst when it comes to himself. He's not even sure if he's going to be able to step foot inside the church.

One of the nice things about being Fallen versus once-human is that a lot of the weaknesses don't apply to you. Salt, devil's traps, most exorcisms, but holy water is even worse, particularly when you don't have a nice meat-suit to insulate yourself from the toxic effects. Churches differ depending on their age and the strength of belief the congregation has. This one sounds young, but the belief... with all the demons apparently running around, the belief might be a serious problem.

Dean, Sam, Castiel and Aziraphale take the Impala, whilst he is left to make his way on his own. For this part he's playing backup, casing the area for danger and general weirdness. That is absolutely fine with him, and he takes the opportunity as he goes to have a little fun with the townsfolk. It's the first he's been able to have since they came to America, as he and Aziraphale are meant to balance one another out, and neither have had the time for inspiring good or evil deeds in anybody.

He makes his way over to the church, taking up position outside where he has a good line of sight of the entrance. The streets are mostly empty at this hour, with only the occasional wary and well-armed traveller passing by giving him suspicious looks. There are a few cars, but apparently either people are too scared to go outdoors, or they are all at the church. Well, with all this cast iron evidence of the supernatural these folks apparently have, he would be surprised if even the most sceptical didn't feel some desire to take up religion at the moment. For all the good it will do them, aka not much.

It's cold out, and he buries his hands deep in his pockets. He's augmented his usual snappy suit with a sleek, black, wool coat and a thick scarf – he's rather cold blooded, and if it weren't for the fact that he's Fallen, he would have been first to volunteer for personal body-guard duty this morning. At least inside it would be warm. It's clear enough that there's nothing of note out here anyway.

Of course, the universe being what it is, that is when the screams start.

* * *

><p>Aziraphale narrows his eyes. Something is off here and he's felt it ever since they came into this room. It might merely be an increased sensitivity to the general demonic presence surrounding this town which he is experiencing now that his full power has awakened, but that answer doesn't seem quite right. There <em>is<em> a malign influence here, there is no doubt about that, but it is not run of the mill hell-spawn. No, it's something much more subtle.

"So, the whole church?" Sam is saying to the pastor.

"The whole town." Pastor David Gideon is a good man, he can tell that much just by looking at him. His soul has been battered in the past weeks, shocked by proof of things he had merely taken on faith before, but he has come out of it stronger, and Aziraphale has no doubt that he is doing everything he can for the people under his care.

"A town full of hunters?" Dean says, grinning. "I don't know whether to run screaming or buy a condo." A silent shadow by his shoulder, Castiel is looking about with a guarded expression. He doesn't quite trust what they are seeing here either. It makes Aziraphale feel a little better that he isn't the only one who feels there is something strange going on, besides the obvious.

"Well the demons were coming, we had to do something," Pastor Gideon says, shrugging.

"Why not call the National Guard?" Sam asks.

"We were told not to."

"By who?" Sam and Aziraphale ask at the same time. Gideon seems uncomfortable with the question, and Aziraphale narrows his eyes. Perhaps this is the root of the oddity.

"Come on Padre," Dean says, looking between them with a hint of tension that he suspects only angels or those who know him very well would pick up on. "You're as locked and loaded as we've ever seen. And that exorcism was Enochian, someone's telling you something."

"Enochian?" Aziraphale says sharply. "You didn't say anything about that before."

"Why? We didn't think it was that important," Dean says, at the same time as the pastor speaks angrily over the top of him.

"Who are you anyway? You don't look much like I would have expected a hunter to."

"Who I am isn't important." He turns to Castiel. "What was the exorcism? Was it anything you recognised?"

"I don't know," Castiel says, defensive. "I was sleeping. It's something I have to do, these days."

"Look," Pastor Gideon says, "I know you're hunters, but our source of information isn't something we can just give out. You understand that if the demons found out..."

A new voice breaks into the conversation. "Dad, it's okay." The speaker is a young woman, not more than twenty-five, dressed plainly in a blue blouse and a knitted cream jumper. She looks innocent enough, but there's something about her that puts Aziraphale's nerves on edge. Ever since coming in here, he hasn't been feeling entirely himself, and it's putting him off balance.

"Leah," the pastor says.

"It's Sam and Dean Winchester, and the angel Castiel. I know all about them."

"Angel?" Pastor Gideon says, looking at them with wide eyes. "You mean one of them has come to us in person?"

"Former angel," Castiel says, looking uncomfortable. "I'm really not a good example of my kin."

"How do you know about us anyway?" Sam asks. "Have you been reading the, uh, the books?"

"The angels told me," Leah says, and Aziraphale goes tense. Yes, there is definitely something off about this human.

"The angels," Dean says, grimacing. "Awesome."

"Don't worry," Leah says. "They can't see you here. You have the marks on your ribs, right? And they won't recognise Castiel anymore."

"Oh, that makes me feel so much better," the Fallen angel says bitterly. Aziraphale takes a closer look at him and wonders if he is recovering from the effects of alcohol intoxication. Perhaps his sleep earlier had been assisted. If Castiel is going down this road... he can't let that happen. After everything Castiel has done, he deserves better from one of his brothers.

"So you know all about us because angels told you?" Sam asks.

"Yes! Among other things."

"Like the snappy little exorcism spell," Dean says, looking concerned.

"And they tell me where the demons are going to be before it happens," Leah says. She seems eager to explain. "How to fight back."

"Never been wrong," her father says. "Not once. She's very special."

"Dad."

This is all seeming more and more suspicious. Aziraphale reaches out with a subtle tendril of Grace, trying to get a read on her. Her soul is human, perfectly normal, but... no, there is something else. Something he can't quite make out. All he knows is that it is the source of the discomfort he has been feeling.

"So, let me guess," Dean says, his thoughts obviously focussed on something. "Before you see something, you get a bad migraine, you see flashing lights?"

Leah nods, and all at once, he knows. Headaches, flashing lights and what that would normally imply; that she is a prophet... Except that cannot be true. She is no prophet.

Clearly Castiel has come to the same conclusion. "The names of all the prophets were seared into my brain when I was first created," he says, taking a threatening step forward. "And yours was not one of them."

"Wait, I... I never said I was a prophet!"

"That is what you've set yourself up as," Aziraphale says. He can feel the anger rising inside him, the holy rage, the flames of righteous wrath that are a Seraph's birthright. His sword is in his hand before he has even thought about it, the fire rippling into being around the blade. He _burns._ It is pure, and holy, and everything he had forgotten. "Is that not true, Babylon?"

Pastor Gideon is frozen to the spot, his eyes wide and panicked. The Great Whore, bearer of False Witness, looks around her in fear, still playing the part of a frail and innocent human. She does still have the soul of the girl whose place she has stolen wrapped up around her as a disguise, but that will not be enough to save her.

"_If a witness be false and hath testified falsely against his brother, then shall you do unto him as he had thought to do to his brother, so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.__**"**_

She drops the act and suddenly he can see the creature she truly is under her husk of transformed skin. She begins to recite Enochian – a curse, and a powerful one. Behind him Castiel cries out, and he can hear the thud as he drops to the floor. It hurts, yes, but what is a little pain to a Seraph? He is God's flame, and he strikes true.

Cyprus from Babylon is the traditional weapon against this evil, but the Sword of Eden does just as well. The blade slides through her and begins to do its purifying work. Perhaps it will offer some comfort to the Pastor that he still will have his daughter's body left to bury. That is more than many who have lost their children to Hell can say.

He is dimly aware of the screams breaking out around them – the townsfolk, of course, those who Babylon would have turned against one another had she been left alive. He allows his wings to manifest, hoping to reassure them. They cast light, not shadows, soft blue light from things as insubstantial as hot, clean-burning flame.

"Zira!" Suddenly there is someone standing in front of him, grabbing his face with their hands, turning it so he is forced to look into yellow slit-pupilled eyes. "Aziraphale, what are you _doing_?" He feels so... detached. As though the anger is burning away by itself, someplace far away. He almost pulls the sword out of Babylon's body, so sure for a long, too long moment that this is another enemy, another evil thing to kill, but then soft lips are pressing against his own, and he returns to himself like blow from a hammer.

Aziraphale stares down at the bodies, plural, lying in a spreading pool of blood. The sword has pierced straight through Pastor Gideon's back where he wrapped himself around his daughter trying to protect her. The holy flames have not touched him, of course, but his face is still frozen in an expression of shock, his eyes dead and cold and blank.

"No." He scarcely recognises his own voice. The harmonics have changed, tinged with too much Grace. _Seraph_, he thinks. _I never wanted this. _He has let his old purpose take control of him, sweep aside everything he is, everything he has become. _I cannot let this happen again_.

His wings take him away, a heedless flight with no destination save away, away from an innocent man's death, away from memories of war and flame, to where no-one can see him weep.

* * *

><p><strong>26.<strong>

There are two dead humans on the floor of the church and countless more traumatised and in shock huddled around the walls, clutching on tight to one another, some sobbing in fear. His skin is tight and tingling with the aura of belief and holiness – worse now than it had been when he first forced his way in here. It's the wrong kind of belief that's building here, the kind based in fear rather than love, easier perhaps for a creature of hell to withstand, but foul to the taste and poisonous in the long run. He crouches, and carefully closes the pastor's eyes.

"What the hell just happened?" Dean Winchester says behind him, a sudden eruption of sound that shatters the silence.

"An avenging angel happened," Castiel says. His voice sounds huskier than ever. He's been drowning his sorrows again.

"What sort of creature is she anyway?" Crowley asks. There's enough left for him to be able to see she's not fully human, but the sword burned away enough of the supernatural taint to make identification impossible.

"She was the Whore of Babylon," Castiel says. "She had to be dealt with, although... perhaps this was not the best way to go about it."

"You think!" Dean says. "I thought we'd seen the last of the 'smite first, ask questions later' kind of angels after Uriel bit it."

"That's what Seraphs are like," Crowley says bitterly. He hasn't seen Aziraphale like this in a very long time. Even then he had not been quite so _blinded_ as this. He remembers the early days, before their Arrangement, when they still fought one another, good versus evil in the mindless unquestioning pattern their two sides have been stuck in since the Fall. His angel had been like this then, sure of his righteousness, only slightly softened by the trappings of humanity they have each come to know and love. "He warned me something bad was going to happen, getting his power back like that. I should have... I don't know. Kept closer to him, been ready for something like this... I might have been able to stop it more quickly."

"This is all because of that sword?" Sam asks.

"Our nature, our purpose, our personality... we aren't human, and we don't work like you do." He gets to his feet, brushing with distaste at the blood and dirt stuck to his knees. "I'll go find him. Talk to him. You should calm everyone down. Castiel can explain what happened as well as I can."

"You sure he's not going to take a swing at you when he sees you?" Dean asks sceptically.

"I hope not," Crowley says quietly. He'd had a chance to do that already, and for a moment Crowley had been sure he wasn't going to recognise him, was only seeing the demon, not his friend, not his lover. But the kiss had brought him back. He had been counting on it. Still... he won't forget the blank look in his angel's eyes in a hurry.

* * *

><p>Aziraphale is trying to hide from him, but Crowley knows him too well to be fooled. There is a bond between them that can never be sundered, a thing that has grown slowly over the years, mingled Grace and mingled hearts, and all he has to do is follow it, though its other half may be faint and distant.<p>

He finds his angel on the top of a mountain somewhere in the Himalayas, snow bright under the sun, the wind stiff and chill and oddly pleasant. The kind of wind that sweeps away all cares and woes, that empties the mind. An enlightenment wind. Crowley might have turned his back on their Father a long, long time ago, but he has never denied the beauty of Creation, that subtle weaving that draws even humans out to commune with it.

Aziraphale is sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and his wings around the rest of him. Crowley puts a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the flickering wisps of pale fire that surround his wrist, pleasantly warm instead of burning. His angel had such beautiful wings, pale grey feathers that deepened to the blue of a cloudless summer sky at the tips of the pinions. It seems this is what they translate to as a Seraph. He wonders suddenly if Samael did this because he missed his own flame, if this is some strange kind of transference for the diminished Morningstar.

Probably not. The devil is above such things, or at least he would never let anyone know otherwise.

"Zira."

"I should never have taken that sword up again," his angel says, the words muffled by his arms. "I will go to War and give it back. I cannot let something like this happen again."

"It's as much my fault as yours," Crowley says, trying to be comforting and not entirely sure how. "You warned me yourself."

"I don't want to be like that again. I wasn't even in control. What use am I to our cause if I go back to thinking like that? I was everything we are trying to stop."

"It _won't_ happen again. I... you remembered who you are now when you saw me, didn't you? I'll help you keep it under control. You won't go back to your old purpose."

Aziraphale lifts his head enough to look up at him. His eyes are still shiny with unshed tears. "How can you promise that? What if it happens again and I hurt _you_. I don't think I could bear it if that happened. If I did something like that."

Crowley pauses, thinks. "Well maybe I can't promise anything, but I can try. I can do my best. I'm not sure there's another choice here. You've already had that sword for much longer than the last time. Simply giving it back might not be enough."

"Then what?"

"Time. To smooth the edges back. And until then I'll take the risk."

Aziraphale unfolds himself, his wings folding back on one another like pieces of coloured glass. His smile is wan, but it's there, and that's enough. "Sit next to me for a while," he says. "I'll keep you warm."

Crowley joins him on the snow and wraps an arm around his waist. They will return when Aziraphale is ready, and until then... he will do his best to remind his love of who he is.

* * *

><p><strong>27.<strong>

The storms are worse than they have ever seen, and not just here but all over the country, coast to coast nothing but rain and wind, thunder and lightning. The road is slick and dangerous in the dark, and even with an angel and a demon sitting in the back of the Impala supposedly protecting them from accidents, Dean can't keep driving much longer. Besides, even though Aziraphale and Crowley are there for their protection, after that display back at Blue Earth he's not really comfortable leaving Cas sitting back there with them. For the first time ever in his life he wishes he drove a seven-seater, some mom and pop SUV. God, maybe he should have let his Dad buy that awful Volkswagen back in the 70s.

The motel, when it appears by the side of the highway is a godsend, and he pulls in without another thought. The bright lights cut through the torrential rain, and he can almost hear the promise of a comfortable bed and maybe Magic Fingers calling to him.

"Alright folks," he says, turning his head to check on their passengers. "Everybody out. We're going to bunk down here for the night. Maybe the rain will let up by the morning."

"I'm not sure that's likely," Aziraphale says apologetically, but he gets out of the car all the same. Both he and Crowley do it the normal way, not like Cas used to, just zapping in and out. And now Cas has to do it normally too, but not through choice. Dean pushes a fresh wave of hurt back down deep. They don't have time for it right now.

The rain beats against their faces for a moment before a curtain of something intangible spreads over them. Looking up, Dean can see the water evaporating as it hits the substance of the Seraph's wings. "Thanks dude," he says. On a night like this, a supernatural umbrella is damn useful. The wind is still strong though, and he and Sam have to push hard to force the motel doors open, holding them for the others. A cold draught sweeps through into the lobby, but strangely, doesn't seem to get very far.

"Nice digs for once," Dean says, looking around. There's a bar, white leather seats by a roaring fire... not exactly their usual run-down motels. Hell, this one even has stars on the door. _Stars_.

"Huh," Crowley says, his attention suddenly taken up by the guy at the reception desk. "He looks familiar."

"Good familiar or bad familiar?" Sam asks.

"That depends," Aziraphale says, frowning. "on what he's doing here. That's Hermes."

"Wha... The _god_ Hermes?" Sam says, but the pair of them have already headed off to confront said supernatural creature. Dean looks over at Cas.

"You know anything about this guy?"

"The messenger god of the Greek pantheon," he replies. "and guide to the Underworld. He is a patron of travellers, so perhaps it makes sense that he is here. He may be able to draw some power from the humans who pass through establishments such as these."

"Okay, I guess that does make sense. Is he dangerous?"

Cas gives him a sardonic look. "You should be fine. He protects travellers, miscreants and thieves, and you are all three."

"Miscreants?" Dean mouths at Sam, which gets him a laugh.

Aziraphale and Crowley have reached the front of the queue at reception, so Sam, Dean and Cas go over to join them. Dean is certainly curious about whether this is going to turn into a hunt. It wouldn't be the first pagan god they've tangled with, and although they haven't always had the best of luck with those, with an angel and a demon on their side, he's not too worried.

"Hermes," the Seraph says pleasantly. "It has been _such_ a long time since we last met. Where was it, back in Arcadia? I recall a very pleasant shrine on a hillside – we ate a meal together and shared gossip."

For a moment the god has a hunted expression but he quickly plasters a pleasant smile back over the top. Not quickly enough to stop Dean from catching it though. "Aziraphale!" he says. "Yes, I remember, although I'm going by Mercury now. And that means your companion here must be the famous Crowley."

"We've met," Crowley says, with an unpleasant smile, in which for a moment his teeth are sharper than they ought to be. "You stepped on me."

"You were a snake at the time," Mercury says with a laugh that seems a little nervous. "And you were trying to tempt some of my worshippers. No hard feelings?"

Crowley doesn't look amused. "Why are you here?"

The god looks between them, and finally he sighs and says, "Well, I suppose you would find out anyway. Baldur has been getting a few of us together for a war meeting. We're not exactly pleased that your sides have started off _your_ Apocalypse. You might have the most believers, the most souls, the most power, but many of us were here first. It's our world too, and we'd like it to stick around."

Aziraphale smiles. There's something about the way he does it that makes you feel as though everything is going to turn out okay. Perhaps it just comes with being an angel. "We feel exactly the same way," he says. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

Mercury looks doubtful. "You don't have an invitation... but I'll talk to Baldur, see what I can do."

"Thank you," the angel says. "And in the meantime, we'd like some rooms for the night."

"That I certainly can do," the god says, looking relieved. His fingers fly over his keyboard at – appropriately – inhuman speed, then he pulls a pair of key fobs out from under the desk. "Enjoy your stay."

Dean keeps his eyes on him as they head off to their rooms. He hasn't stayed alive this long by trusting pagan gods, and there's just something suspicious about the way Mercury was behaving. Unconsciously he raises a hand to his throat, just below the angle of his jaw. When he brings it away again, his fingers are tinged with blood.

* * *

><p>Castiel is finding the urge to sleep troublesome. It is a part of becoming more human, he knows that, but that doesn't mean it comes easily to him. He has difficulty in relaxing, in quieting his mind enough to fall asleep, and although he doesn't yet need to do so as much as Sam or Dean, he finds the need coming over him at the most inopportune times. The consumption of significant amounts of alcohol helps, but recently Dean has been giving him disapproving looks every time he pulls out a bottle, so he has been trying to cut down.<p>

"Hey look, they've got an all you can eat buffet," Dean says, holding up the welcome pack to show them. "You want to go grab some food? I'm starving."

"No, thank you." These beds look far more comfortable than the back seat of the Impala. He thinks he might be able to get to sleep on them. "I will stay here and... rest."

"You going to be okay on your own?" Dean asks.

"I will be fine Dean. There is no need to worry." Dean gives him a concerned look, but he and Sam leave to look for the buffet. Castiel sits on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes as human convention dictates, then after some hesitation, shrugs off his coat. It is... strange, not to wear it after so long. It has become an object of comfort for him, something familiar even through his Fall.

He climbs under the covers, rests his head on the pillow, and tries to relax. The warmth is pleasant after the wind and the rain, and the bed is indeed as soft as it had looked. Perhaps even softer. He is starting to feel himself drift off when there is a sudden, tiny flick of pain from the side of his neck, like the bite of an insect. He rubs at it, absent-minded. It is nothing.

He goes back to the task of falling asleep.

* * *

><p>"We have a problem."<p>

Crowley twists round to look at them over his shoulder, fighting sheets which somehow have turned into some kind of cotton octopus in the past half hour. He runs a hand through his hair to straighten it out a bit and scowls at the invading trio. He had been enjoying his nap tucked up against Aziraphale's side after their more energetic activities earlier, and he's in no mood to be disturbed. Even if it _does_ turn out to be an emergency.

"What?" he asks.

"Um..." Sam looks rather stunned, and his brother can't seem to work out whether he is intrigued or disgusted. Castiel is as impassive as always. "You two are... you're naked under there aren't you."

"Amazing deduction," Crowley says, rolling his eyes. "Just be thankful you didn't come in an hour ago. Now, what is it?"

"Uh, all the people are missing," Sam says. "All the other guests – they seem to have just vanished. And we just noticed, but all three of us have the exact same cuts. They look like shaving cuts, but I didn't have one before, and Cas doesn't have to shave."

"Huh." That is odd. Crowley turns back towards Aziraphale and pokes him in the ribs until he wakes up. This sounds like something that needs a little supernatural expertise. Not to mention that Mercury's presence here is too coincidental to be unconnected.

"Do you want us to leave while you get presentable?" Dean asks with what is unmistakably a leer. Crowley sighs, and with a little wave of his hand, creates his usual ensemble from the fabric of the universe. Beside him, Aziraphale does the same. A lot of tweed is involved.

"That won't be necessary," he says. "Now, let's go and investigate."

* * *

><p>The Winchesters were right; there are no humans anywhere. Nor can they find Mercury, although the air is thick with power, pagan power, the unmistakable presence of numerous gods. Their search leads them at last to the kitchens, and Crowley stops at the entrance, noting the smell of fragrant meat, heavy with spices. His senses are suddenly prickling with the dark sensation of blood magic. Sacrifice. Human sacrifices in fact, plural. No wonder there is so much raw energy floating about.<p>

"You boys aren't going to like this," he says, and Aziraphale pauses beside him.

"I recognise this," he says slowly. "The convent. Blood magic."

"Yeah," Dean says, and lifts a ladle from a boiling pot on the stove nearby. The liquid inside is thick and dark, and as he pours it out, an eyeball slips over the lip, soft and gooey with cooking. "I'm guessing the little pagan convention is responsible for this."

"It's a good power boost," Crowley says, with an expression of distaste. "Even for those running on a limited amount of belief, ritual sacrifice will sustain them for a considerable while."

"That is correct," someone says behind them.

"Zao Shen," Crowley says, turning to look, then for the benefit of the humans amongst them, "God of the Kitchen."

"This is not my traditional fare I know," the god says, spreading his arms expansively to take in the room. "But it is good to offer my services for our guests."

"You sick sons of bitches," Dean says, taking a threatening step forward.

"You are Dean Winchester, yes?" Zao Shen interrupts him. "The tall one is your brother Sam, and the scruffy one is your Fallen angel. I am to bring you to the meeting." He glances at Crowley and Aziraphale and bows to them respectfully. "You may of course come too."

"And if we'd rather be ganking you than sitting down to a little pow-wow?" Dean asks, furious.

Zao Shen smiles apologetically. "Then we shall bring you by force." He gestures, and one of the loa steps into their line of sight beside him. Baron Samedi, unless Crowley is very much mistaken. He is riding a tall, serious, black man, and a thick stink of old tobacco smoke and spirits hangs in the air around him. Crowley exchanges a glance with Aziraphale. Both of these gods have deep wells of belief to draw on, and though they might be able to take them in a fight, he wouldn't be willing to bet on it. He sighs. They don't have much of a choice.

"Okay. Let's see what they have to say."

* * *

><p><strong>28.<strong>

Dean is not happy with this turn of events. Not in any way. First the storm, then the unpleasantly sudden appearance of a pagan god, human sacrifices, and now this. Captured and dragged before a conference room full of monsters. He glares around him, taking in the gods staring at them, noticing the helpful red and white rectangles of name badges stuck to the chests of each one.

Baron Samedi and Zao Shen, who brought them from the kitchens. Odin, grizzled, stern and grey haired, one eye with the sheen of glass. Ganesh, regal and somehow with more sense of presence than any human should possess. Kali, the woman from the buffet earlier that night, as beautiful and cold-eyed as before. Baldur standing beside her, blandly handsome. He even sees Mercury off to one side, still wearing his motel uniform. So much for a protector of travellers.

"Ah," Baldur says, raising his head at their abrupt entrance. "It seems our guests of honour have arrived." Dean tries not to grind his teeth together. He's sick and tired of being at the mercy of beings much more powerful than he is. Just because monsters are monsters doesn't give them the right to go around eating people and thinking they're better than they are.

"Nice digs," Crowley says sarcastically. The demon brushes some invisible lint off the shoulder of his suit before folding his arms and looking around with an expression of disdain. "Slumming it are we? I can smell the blood. Very old school. Very traditional."

"It seems we welcome the Serpent of Eden into our midst," the Norse god says, raising his glass of champagne in what might be a mocking sort of salute. "And the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. Only right, I think, as it is the actions of your pantheon we meet here to discuss."

"Their actions, perhaps," Aziraphale says. "But not ones we condone."

"We are aware of your alliance with these humans and their pet angel," Kali says, and Dean bristles. Cas is no pet.

"Hey, maybe you could be a little more polite if you're going to need us for something."

The look Kali gives him would be withering if he gave even the tiniest shit about the opinions of gods. "Sit down. The grown-ups are talking."

"Now look here..."

"What my brother is trying to say," Sam interrupts. "Is that we're all on the same side here. We all want to stop Lucifer and the angels from bring about the end of the world. So we should all just calm down and be civil to one another until we've talked this through."

"It seems one of you has some sense after all," Kali says, smiling. It's goddamn condescending, but Dean has to admit, if reluctantly, that this is another one of those situations where he is out of his depth and his usual defence mechanism of smart-talk can only get him in deeper. The end of the world really does suck.

Seats are provided for them, and the various deities ranged about the room enjoying snacks and complementary drinks join them around the table. There are plenty more that Dean doesn't recognise, and not all of the name badges are in English. He recognises Sanskrit and Enochian and some demonic script, but he's lost as to their meaning. Sam would know, but now isn't the best time to ask.

Baldur stands and taps the side of his glass with a fork to call the room to attention. It is an oddly human gesture. Dean would have expected a meeting of gods to be more... ritualised. All dribbly candles and eldritch sigils and thrones made out of bones. He'd kind of assumed they would drop the human masks amongst themselves, but apparently not. Perhaps it's just easier, or perhaps it's a consideration for the humans amongst them, ie. him and his brother.

"My fellow gods, thank you for coming. In all my centuries, I never thought I would see this – the Abrahamic pantheon having the audacity to try and end existence, without the slightest regard for their supernatural contemporaries. Are we not equally as old as they? Have we not had our millennia of devotion, of belief and sacrifices, blood spilt in our names, hymns and praises and songs and prayers raised up to us? Do we not own this planet as surely as they? What gives them the right to do this?"

A low murmur of agreement rises from around the room. Not all of it sounds like it could have come from human-shaped throats.

"And so we have come together in the spirit of co-operation to discuss what is to be done about this travesty. This is a place of amnesty, so I will thank you for your patience and lack of violence. We may come from very different pantheons, but that does not mean we cannot work together and coexist, at least for as long as we need to."

"A fine speech," Crowley says, raising his voice to be heard over the polite clapping that follows. "But that's all it is, pretty words. Not to disparage my fine fellows here, but I can't help but notice how many of you are from dead pantheons. You yourself, Baldur, and the Allfather over here, survive on the stale, thin acknowledgement of scholars, and the inaccuracies of comic books and tie-in movies. Kali, you and Ganesh are far from home and your places of power. This is America. They fear my kind and spill blood in the name of Aziraphale's. Heaven has zealots and fanatics aplenty – good food. Strong food."

Dean has never really thought about it in those terms, but he supposes the demon makes a strange kind of sense. There are a lot of pagan gods that even hunters can kill, if they're well enough prepared, and to compare that with the angels... well. There's a wide, wide chasm separating the two, and there must be a reason for that.

Baldur looks less than pleased to be put down like that, but he doesn't let it show in his voice. "Those are all good points. However you overlook several key factors. Heaven is in disarray, their God vanished, their general Michael seemingly disappeared or even imprisoned, it is rumoured. They are not the power they once were. They couldn't even _start_ this on their own, from what I have heard. No, they were forced into an alliance with their Fallen brethren, the Grigori."

Dean frowns. That last part is news to him, although now he thinks about it, Samael did mention something about Zachariah's allies when they had been trapped in Heaven. Beside him he notices Crowley and Aziraphale are both looking rather worried, and the demon in particular is glancing over at him wide-eyed.

"And as for Hell and this so-called Lucifer," Baldur continues, "the one bearing that name is no true Morningstar. The true Lucifer left that path a long time ago, and all of us who have had even the slightest passing acquaintance with him know he would never willingly bow to Yahweh's plan." He looks around the room at the other gods, some of whom are wearing the exact same expression of confusion Dean imagines is stretched across his own face right now. "Yes, my fellow immortals! It is true! Samyaza, most cunning of the Grigori, stole the True Name of the Prince of Hell and now walks the earth in his place, forcing Samael to ally himself with these humans!" His arm sweeps out in a gesture of contempt. "We face an usurper, a pale imitation; how can that hope to stand against our combined powers? You all know Lucifer's fell might, but this imposter has not his Will, has not his sense of purpose. The time is right to strike!"

It takes a little while for it to sink in. At first Dean simply can't comprehend it, it makes no sense, but he can see Sam come to realisation from his seat to the left, his eyes going wide, an exclamation of surprise nearly bursting out of him before he regains control of himself. Then, finally, he gets it.

They've been working for the devil. _Samael_ is Lucifer, not the guy who's been trying to slip into Sammy's skin, the guy they shot in Carthage, the guy they've been gunning for these past months. And judging by their faces, the angel and the demon knew it too. They've been playing them for a fool while they helped evil to do... well, whatever the hell he was trying to do.

"I knew that guy was too damn cagey to be trusted," he mutters under his breath. He looks over at Cas to see how he's taking the sudden revelation. The angel looks not shocked, or even particularly surprised, just kind of numb. After everything he's been through, perhaps he can simply no longer care about any more bad news.

Dean would like to jump to his feet and confront the lying sacks of shit that have been pretending to be their allies over the past weeks, but it seems Baldur still hasn't finished talking, and somehow interrupting a god doesn't seem like the best of plans. He isn't really listening though, too busy glaring at the snake – a literal, as well as metaphorical, one – and his damn boyfriend. It's only when he hears the phrase 'Michael and Lucifer's vessels', that he realises maybe he ought to have been paying attention after all.

* * *

><p><strong>29.<strong>

Great. They're screwed. They are so, so screwed. Bloody _Baldur_, or all people, has let the cat out of the bag and the one secret they were hoping the Winchester boys never found out before the ritual was over and done with is wide out in the open. Crowley doesn't have to see the cold, black hate in Dean Winchester's eyes to know the moment they get a chance they'll be cutting all ties, and that's if they're not trying to kill them. Not that it would work mind, but it only takes a little holy water to drop him in a world of hurt.

And then the Archangel shows up.

He feels the Grace before the doors even have a chance to open, but he doesn't really recognise it until Gabriel the Messenger is bounding into the room like a kid on a sugar high, energy swirling round him, a confusing mixture of angelic and pagan bringing with it the heavy scent of cinnamon and mistletoe, honey-mead and the tang of ozone.

"You folks starting the meeting without me?" he says, his gaze roaming around the room, friendly smile and loose body language belying the wariness just visible at the back of his eyes. He pauses just slightly at the sight of Crowley and his companions, but scarcely enough to be noticed.

Crowley is too surprised to speak, but Sam has blurted out the first syllable of the Archangel's name before Gabriel silences him with a quick flick of his fingers and a pulse of power that is more Trickster than anything else, doing the same to Dean and Cas for good measure. He doesn't try it on Aziraphale or him – a normal Trickster wouldn't be able to affect them, and apparently that is what Gabriel is pretending to be.

"Sam, Dean, Castiel," the Archangel says, rolling the words off his tongue mockingly. "And a couple of new friends too! You do seem to get into such messes don't you."

"Loki," Baldur says from the head of the table, the hate thick and heavy in his voice. Crowley exchanges a confused look with Aziraphale, who subtly shrugs. He guesses they would have to ask the Winchesters, except that oh no, they hate them now. Information does not look to be forthcoming.

"Baldur," Gabriel replies. "Good seeing you too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail."

"Why are you here?" Baldur asks, glowering.

"To talk about the elephant in the room – not you," he adds as an aside after Ganesh takes predictable exception to this statement. "Samael. I've tangled with the guy before, and I know him. He's not the type to share. Do you really think he's going to share something as important to him as revenge?"

A few of the gods shift in their seats uneasily, but Baldur merely laughs. "And what will he do? He's been stripped of his Name and his power. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the once-great Star of the Morning."

Yeah, no, Crowley thinks. Underestimate the devil at your peril. Although, from what he recalls of Norse mythology, Baldur never struck him as the brightest of deities, for all his holy polish.

"Baldur, he's smart. Trickster smart, and I speak from experience. This is _not_ a good plan."

"I agree," Aziraphale says, speaking up unexpectedly. "An alliance he might consider, but somehow, I don't think that's what you're proposing."

"Yeah, listen to the Seraph," Gabriel says, turning to look at them appraisingly. "Who the heck are these guys anyway?"

"They work for Samael," Baldur says. "They were assigned to guard the Winchesters."

"What?" Gabriel says, spinning round to look at Baldur in astonishment. "Have you lost your mind? You're just letting them listen in on your _war meeting_? Why don't you just hand Samael your own hearts on a plate?"

"Enough of this, Loki," Baldur says, slamming his hand down on the table. "You can add your vote at the end, but barging in here with baseless protests will convince no-one."

"At least send these ones away before we get to discussing the actual plan."

Baldur looks sideways at Kali, who nods slightly. "Very well."

"Excellent," Gabriel says, turning, and with a snap of his fingers the five of their group have been returned to the Winchester's motel room.

* * *

><p>"I think the pair of you owe us an explanation," Sam says coldly, once he has re-oriented himself from their quick relocation. He's angry, yes, but it's a quiet, slow-burning kind of rage. He and Dean have been manipulated over and over again by supernatural forces over their lifetimes, from the Yellow Eyed Demon to the angels, and this is just one more in a long line of betrayals.<p>

"I'm sorry," Aziraphale says. "We weren't to tell you. Samael expected you would react badly."

"Oh, you think?" Dean says. Sam can see his fingers twitching in a way that means he's itching to reach for his gun.

"So what is all this about really?" Sam asks. "How about you tell us the truth, and maybe we won't fry the pair of you in holy oil." There's some part of him that knows the threat is empty – these two are powerful enough that they haven't a hope of hurting them unless they take them by surprise, but their so-called allies need to be made aware of just how damn tired he is of being lied to.

"Okay," Crowley says, his hands coming up palms outward in a gesture of supplication. "There's no need for anyone to do anything hasty. I figure we do owe you something. And you know most of it already now – I'm sure you could put it together by yourselves given half the chance."

"So we are working for the Great Adversary now," Castiel says. There's a harsh, almost cruel cant to his words. He laughs, and it is bitter. "After all this, why not? My Father has abandoned us, Heaven has left the path he set out, what evil is there left for us to fear?"

It sounds like despair, and Sam winces. They were the ones who got Castiel into this, who persuaded him to turn against his siblings and Fall. He can't help but think they have failed him, to let him lose hope like this. He's noticed the drinking, but he had told himself it was just a stopgap measure, that all hunters resorted to it in some measure, that they would deal with it when they had a chance, when all this was over. Now he doesn't know _what_ to do.

"Look, I'm not going to argue about his character," Crowley says. "Samael doesn't care in the slightest about anyone except himself. Aziraphale and I owed him a favour, so we had to pay up. We're just chess pieces, and that's the way he thinks of everyone who gets caught up in one of his plans. But evil? No. I've seen evil, and from a professional point of view boys, no-one can do evil like a human."

"Are you really trying to tell us that the _devil_ isn't evil?" Dean says. "The _devil_."

"I remember Hell under his rule. All he cared about was paying Yahweh back for sticking him down in the Pit, or Michael for winning the War. Humans were irrelevant. He left the Dukes to their own devices, and then of course the human souls started to come in and turn on each other. Things grew from there. Tell me Dean, from your time in Hell, can you think of any torturer you saw who hadn't been human once?"

Sam can tell from his brother's stunned expression that the demon's words have hit home. Thinking about it, there is a certain amount of sense in it. After all, you only have to look at history to see a long line of atrocities committed by humans, and although he is well aware of the kind of monsters that lurk in the dark, he believes in free will. He has never accepted that all of the good and evil humans do is the result of tampering by otherworldly powers.

"Humans are creative. My kind were angels once," Crowley continues, "and angels have never had any real imagination. I think Samael is perhaps the one exception to that, but he was one of the firstborn, it stands to reason he would be different. Anyway, a couple of decades ago he finally decided he wasn't going to play Yahweh's game anymore. He abandoned his position, abandoned Hell and went his own way. Raphael and Zachariah must have known he would never go along with their plan, and anyway he has a greater claim to the Throne of Heaven than either of them. Hence the alliance with the Grigori. And... I guess you know the rest."

"Our lies to you have been lies of omission," Aziraphale says. "Our goals, our plan, are the same as they ever were.

Sam looks from Castiel, despondent and staring at the floor, to his brother, still angry and practically vibrating with the fresh hurt of being reminded of Hell. "I think we're going to need some time to think about this," he says quietly.

* * *

><p><strong>30.<strong>

Gabriel is all about staying under the radar. He has a policy of non-involvement, at least about the big things. A few judgements here and there, a little payback, a little karma; they don't count. They're a part of his cover. But now this whole business is going to destroy that, apparently whether he wants it to or not. After Samael's warning, he fully intended to do what his once-brother wanted. He never expected his _new_ brethren, the multitude of pagans, to be the ones to force his hand.

Now everything is a mess. He's never liked Baldur, but he doesn't think it's prejudice making him so sceptical about this so-called plan. Odin going along with it makes sense, the douche-nozzle is his favourite son after all, but he wonders what some of the others are thinking. Maybe it's just the benefit of his personal experience, experience which tells him getting between Samael and a target is likely to get you the more permanent kind of dead. Although when it comes to Kali, he has a faint suspicion she's here just for the mere fact of war, for the faint taste of blood on the air, heavy and waiting to be spilled. Of everyone here, he's most confident that Kali will be walking away from this unscathed – there's little that's even capable of hurting her, even so far from her birth-land.

He leaves a little of his Grace listening to the war meeting, splitting his attention easily, and sends the rest to talk to the Winchesters. If he's going to be mixed up in this, as the universe seems to want so badly, he wants information first. Namely, what is his brother up to, what is their part in it, and who _exactly _are their new buddies.

The atmosphere inside the room when he appears can only be described as tense. The storm of emotion is enough to make his feathers bristle all out of shape, and he nearly shudders before remembering himself. He forces himself to relax, leaning back on the couch and flicking his wings into a more appropriate pose.

"Gabriel," Dean says, noticing him. He's scowling, one hand resting on Castiel's shoulder. The little guy looks... well, unhealthy is the only way to put it. Gabriel had seen it back in the function room, but he hadn't really _seen_ it. He'd had other things to worry about, but now he can give his younger brother a proper look over, and he doesn't like it. There's Falling and there's Falling, and this is one of the worse cases he's seen.

"Where are your pals?" he asks, because surely a Seraph ought to know better than to leave a heart-sick and potentially suicidal fledgling alone like this, especially one of Raphael's – one of the useful things about being an Archangel is being able to see the signatures of Garrisons on an angel's Grace.

"Gone, if they know what's fucking good for them," Dean says, looking even more constipated, if that's possible.

"What's crawled up your ass and died?" Gabriel asks.

"How about the fact we've been working for the devil for months without knowing it?" the hunter says. The hand on Castiel's shoulder tightens enough that it would be painful for a human, though Gabriel doubts the angel is feeling it. No, he's just staring at him with disturbingly dead eyes.

"Is that all?" he says, rolling his eyes. This kind of posturing in typical of these boys, from what he's seen of them through the years. Their moral standards are kind of fucked up, honestly, not to mention their priorities. "Get over yourselves, and for Dad's sake kiss and make up so we can get on with saving the world."

"We?" Sam says, raising an eyebrow.

"Samael fights his fate, and I run away from it," Gabriel replies, deciding on honesty for once. Anyway, it's the only thing likely to work on these guys in their current state. "But the universe doesn't seem to be letting me do that anymore. So I'll give you guys a hand, just this once. Just to get you out of my feathers, understand?"

Sam exchanges a look with his brother, then sighs. "Honestly, we'll take it. I just want to get as far away from here as possible."

"You and me both." Gabriel sits up a bit straighter and rubs his hands together, thinking over the possibilities. "Okay, so I'll sneak you folks out from under their noses, in exchange for you getting over your weird moral hang-ups. Oh, and telling me just what my dear brother's planning. We have a deal?"

"It will not be as easy as that." It's almost a shock when Castiel speaks. Gabriel wasn't expecting him to sound so... human. "You forget that Mercury took blood from each of us. We will have to retrieve it."

Gabriel sighs. Why did he think this would be _simple_? The Winchesters are involved, of course it would be a headache. "Kali. Blood is kind of her forte, you might have noticed." At least with her he has an in. "I'll get it back. And in the meantime, you can call up your allies and make nice."

"What about the meatsicles in the freezer downstairs?" Dean asks. "We want to take them with us too."

"It's too late for them Dean. They're nearly all dead already, and the ones that aren't are marked. There's no escaping for them. This is a limited edition ticket out of dodge, so take it or leave it."

Dean looks mutinous, but Gabriel has confidence in Sam's more practical nature. The meeting downstairs is starting to wrap up anyway.

"I'll see you boys in five. Try not to break the world any more than you already have while I'm gone."

* * *

><p>"Are we really going to do this?" Dean asks. "Are we really going to apologise to that pair of lying douchebags?" His soul is in turmoil, even now Castiel can still see it, a shining and splendid thing for all the years of pain both in Hell and on Earth that surrounds it like shattered armour. For his own part, it does not matter to him what they do. Heaven has proven itself corrupt, his Father has abandoned them, and he is very nearly Fallen completely. It does not seem that there is any further to sink. He was born after the War, after Lucifer left, so he has no firsthand knowledge of his character, but he is willing to believe what others have said about him. For all his history, Castiel believes that he is neutral. A chance at ending this... crumbling... of all he has ever held dear... It is worth any price.<p>

Sam shrugs. He has, after all, allied himself with demons in the past. "Gabriel said we ought to. I think he knows what his brother is like."

"We can't trust him," Dean says. "Or have you forgotten everything he's done to us over the years?"

Castiel has not forgotten, although his knowledge of such things comes from the works of the Prophet. Gabriel is... well. There is a kind of fatalism in which Castiel has taken refuge, that says, this is the way things are, this is what your kin have become, this is the way things fall apart in the end of days, and all of it is destiny unchanging.

Of everything around him, Dean is the only constant. Perhaps that is why he clings to him, makes him the anchor on which his existence hangs. They have a profound bond, as he has said before, one which even he does not fully understand. But Dean is all that is keeping him afloat.

"Fine," Dean says, ending the discussion Castiel was not truly listening to. "Fine. We'll _apologise_." He pauses a moment. "How do we do that anyway? Pray for forgiveness?"

Castiel meets their expectant gaze. He is, he supposes, still the expert on the ways of his family. "I believe they will still be nearby," he says. "They were ordered to watch over you, and they would not risk losing track of us and chancing Samael's wrath. Prayer directed to Aziraphale should be sufficient."

"Okay," Sam says. "Uh, I guess I'll give it a try first. No offence Dean, but you might not be very... diplomatic."

Dean nods, and so his brother begins. Honestly meant prayer has a quality all its own, and as his words fill the room, Castiel is sure this will be enough. For all his bad decisions, no-one can doubt Samuel Winchester's sincerity.

* * *

><p>Things do not go entirely according to plan. Gabriel doesn't know how or when Kali figured out who he was, but she came prepared for him. Blood is a powerful link, and he has been playing by pagan rules for too long not to be affected by it. The blood of a god – in a very real sense it is his Grace, and Kali is holding it in the palm of her hand.<p>

"How long have you been wearing Loki?" she asks. Gabriel is very aware he is standing on the edge of a precipice, and it's a very long way down.

"For as long as I've known you," he says quietly. "For centuries now. But I have his permission. You know we need permission."

"We do not take kindly to those who lie to us, Messenger."

Gabriel forces a smile. "I'm still a Trickster baby, lying is what I do." If he's hoping for a laugh, or even a smirk, he is disappointed.

Kali looks at him like he's something that crawled out from under a rock – and to her, that's probably exactly what his kind are. "The others will vote to decide what to do with you. But know this; you have betrayed me, and so you know where my vote will fall."

* * *

><p>Aziraphale had hoped for an eventual reconciliation, but he confesses he hadn't expected the Winchester brothers to forgive them this quickly. Sam appears to be entirely genuine in his desire to work together again, although he can tell Dean is considerably less sanguine about the idea. As for Castiel... he really doesn't know what to do about Castiel. His brother needs help, but as to the specifics, Aziraphale is lost.<p>

However he doesn't get much time to think it over, as Lao-Shen picks this moment to appear in the room, his arms crossed in front of him and looking distinctly displeased.

"You are to come back to the meeting now," he says. "We have finished our discussion and must decide what to do with you."

"How about letting us go?" Dean asks.

"You are still useful to us," Lao-Shen says without emotion. "Now come."

Aziraphale bows his head diplomatically. "We shall do as you wish," he says carefully. It would be very unwise to make a move before Gabriel returns with the blood.

The God of the Kitchen escorts them back downstairs, past empty room after empty room, back to the conference hall and the meeting of the gods. Aziraphale is not immediately surprised to see Gabriel sitting there, for Archangels are capable of being in more places than one, not to mention whatever tricks he might have picked up playing this charade of his. He _is_ surprised however when Gabriel gives them a helpless look, and that is when he realises that his hands are bound behind his back with woven shackles of fresh-cut evergreen, spelled to catch and keep a pagan god.

"Sorry guys," the Messenger says. "Things didn't go quite to plan."


	6. Chapter 6

31.

"Now that the true nature of this traitor has been revealed we have put the matter to the vote," Kali announces, her voice rich as black river mud. Gabriel twists in his bindings, but he has been pagan too long, the nature of his vessel has imprinted upon him such that he is as prey to this as any of his borrowed pantheon. He looks over apologetically at the coterie of his would-be allies hesitating near the door. "The tally has been counted. This _creature_," – and here she sneers – "is to die. To be put to death on his own sword."

Her touch is as bitter as the grave as she slides her hand under his jacket, questing into space-that-is-not to find his blade. Yet he is not a Trickster for nothing, and he doesn't intent to go to his death without trying every way he can to wriggle out of it. The sword Kali grasps is not his own, merely a mockery, a thing moulded out of base metal by what Grace he has that isn't all wrapped up in Loki's power.

Of course these are gods and there are many of them. Their power combined could end him as surely as any Archangel's weapon. As he is now he is the equal of one of them, maybe two or three of the weaker ones. If he had ever anticipated this scenario it hadn't been with him imprisoned. If his true Name and nature ever became known he had planned to flee, but that isn't really an option here.

"Surely this isn't necessary," Samael's Seraph says, taking a few steps forward before he is halted by Zao Shen's arm across his chest, invisible tendrils of power poised to strike in silent threat. "Isn't he still a potential ally? A powerful one?"

"He is still a Trickster," Kali says. "And an angel. He cannot be trusted."

"What about Loki?" Gabriel says, knowing he's grasping at straws. "If you kill me, whatever's left of him dies too." He looks to Odin and Baldur for any hint of mercy. The one eyed god snorts.

"Never did like him much to begin with. No great loss."

Options are growing really, really thin here. He has faked his death before, but not with so many deitys of varying power levels looking on. Kali knows death, and she will be watching particularly closely. He's not sure he can fool her.

"Hey, dickheads." Of all the people to speak up, he wouldn't have expected Dean Winchester. But then, they do still need Gabriel to get them out of here in one piece. "The dude's on our side, alright. Now obviously you need me and Sam for something otherwise you wouldn't have trapped us here. I'm guessing you need our help to get the big bad to step into whatever little trap you pagan creeps have cooked up, but I can tell you right now that you'll be shit out of luck if you kill the newest member of Team Free Will over there."

Kali laughs. "Humans. You have no idea what you're dealing with, do you? We are _gods_. If we need you to fulfil a task for us, we will not give you a choice in the matter." She gestures at Gabriel. "Free will is _his_ Father's gift to you, not ours. We are bound by none of their rules."

Perhaps he can slip the bindings. That might allow him to access enough power to create an illusion good enough to fool Kali. He knows her very well, but she only knows him as Loki. It might be enough... but they are tight, so very tight. He has been a pagan too long.

Kali looks from him to the blade and laughs. "You didn't really think this would fool me did you?" she says, and let's it fall to the floor where it dissipates into energy. She reaches out to him, her hand slipping under his jacket and into the pocket of sub-space where he keeps his _real_ sword. She is a goddess; it doesn't pose a problem to her, no matter how he tries to hide it from her. The deadly spike of pure woven Grace reflects the light, and he can feel Kali's power invading it, turning it to her own ends. The weapon is too close for comfort, and he finds himself drawing in his wings instinctively to protect himself. Not that they would do any good. Shit. Oh shit. Not as planned. Not as planned!

"Kali please." The bindings are subtle, but he thinks he can feel them loosening as he picks away at the magic. So close, so close. If he can but stall her for a little longer... But she is implacable, that is her nature.

The blade comes down.

With a final wrench Gabriel pulls himself free just as the tip of the sword scrapes his vessel's skin, leaving behind a shadow-shell of Grace that sparks and wails and dies as convincingly as possible. In the moment between moments he has fled the building, shivering and compacting into himself in fear, making himself as small as he can in case the gods weren't fooled. He goes to ground momentarily in the Winchester's car, covered as it is in wards built up over the long years, not to mention the psychic imprint of _human_ and _home_ that should help to disguise him.

He stays as he is for long moments. Nothing happens. There is no hue and cry of angry gods, no pursuit, no search. It looks like the very closeness of his escape has fooled them. Warily Gabriel sends out a slight touch of his Grace and awareness towards the motel. All is quiet, his pagan brethren remaining inside their meeting room. The portion of power he left behind is shredded; Kali has taken the opportunity to feed on the seeming-death, her power subsuming his own. He shudders. That would have been... unpleasant.

The blood bindings on him are gone, consumed in Kali's gluttony. However that still leaves the others trapped. He could leave, run and disappear once more, but he has given his word and for an angel that is no meagre thing. Even for a Trickster like himself. And he will need all of that quick mind and wit if he's to come up with a plan before things go even more to hell.

Of course, that is when the trap is sprung.

* * *

><p>Aziraphale lets out a choked noise of distress as the blinding light of Grace extinguishing leaps from Gabriel's eyes. He cuts it off quickly, but he can tell from the sympathy in Crowley's eyes that the demon heard it. Castiel too has gone stiff and rigid, more so than normal. But right here and now there isn't time to mourn properly, to let himself feel the shock and horror that he knows is roiling about inside. They are in danger. There will be a place for it later, providing they themselves get out of it alive.<p>

"You see," Kali says, straightening up, pulling the angelic blade loose. Her skin is flushed night-black beneath the shell of her avatar, her eyes red as rubies. "They _can_ die, and with their god gone there will be no resurrection for them. The false Lucifer will fall to us."

Aziraphale doesn't doubt that these gods have the power to do such a thing. There has never been an outright war between Heaven and the other pantheons and this is the reason why; because the combined forces of all the belief and blood spilt in each religion's name would make the match too even, victory too costly. It would be mutual destruction. Easier to let the humans fight it out on their behalf. But with an Apocalypse rising, the game has changed.

A few seats further down the table, Dean Winchester slowly rises to his feet. He is afraid, yes, Aziraphale can read it in every tense line of his body, but there is a steely determination on his face.

"Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up."

Beside him his brother whispers, "Dean, are you out of your mind?"

"We're out of options." Aziraphale has to agree that it does seem hopeless. They are completely outmatched, and the blood Kali has taken binds the humans and Castiel to this place without a chance of escape. "Now on any other day I'd be doing my very best to kill you," Dean continues, maintaining his bravado. Aziraphale keeps his silence, exchanging glances with Crowley. He's not entirely sure where Dean is going with this, but at this point it can hardly get them into any deeper trouble. "But hey, desperate times."

Dean paces as he talks, circling behind their chairs up to where Gabriel's vessel is lying hollowed out and empty. His eyes flick downwards momentarily, as though he's checking for something. Wings, Aziraphale realises suddenly. From this angle he can't properly make anything out, but for the death of an Archangel he would have expected the prints of his burnt-out wings to be massive, to stretch out across the entire room. And yet he can see nothing. It isn't conclusive, and he can't begin to imagine how Gabriel might have escaped, but he is a naturally optimistic being. A small ember of hope awakens within him.

"So even though I'd love nothing better than to slit your throats, I'm going to help you with your little plan." Dean turns his back, pouring a generous glass of whiskey from the refreshments cart behind him. Personally Aziraphale would never be so uncivil to beings of such power and age, but so far the pagan gods seem more amused by human defiance than insulted. "I'm going to help you ice the devil. Then we can all get back to ganking each other like normal."

"You would abandon your other allies?" Baldur asks.

"Sure, why the hell not. They're a bunch of lying dicks anyway. If it's Lucifer you folks are after, well, me and Sam can get him for you. I don't particularly care which one either. What you do with him after that is up to you."

"How?" Kali asks, after a moment's thought. The blade in her hand seems almost forgotten, but Aziraphale still keeps an eye on it. It is clean and unbloodied, but that doesn't mean much. Human vessels don't bleed in an angel's death, he has no idea how a Trickster vessel might work. Most gods exist as avatars of their power in the human world, collections of belief given form. They can be slain temporarily but never permanently as long as belief in them still exists. He still doesn't know how Gabriel hid himself in Loki's form in the first place. It shouldn't have been possible.

"First I want a guarantee of our safety," Dean says.

"Done. Do you extend that safety to your allies?"

"To Cas obviously," Dean says quickly. "Like I said, I don't give a shit about the other guys." At this point Aziraphale can't tell whether his ire is genuine or merely an act. "And if there are any people left in the meat locker, let them go."

"Most of the sacrifices have already been slain," Kali says, sounding amused. "Zao-Shen?"

"There may be one or two left," the god of the kitchen replies. "I anticipated the meeting would run late. They were for supper."

"I think we can go without. You may release them."

Dean nods. "Uh, thanks I guess. You mind if I do that now?"

"Go ahead."

Dean hurries from the room. Aziraphale tries to keep calm as he watches the room, thinking. It would be nice to rely on Ineffability as he once did, but under the circumstances... As an angel he has never before worried about a permanent death. He finds it a most unpleasant feeling.

* * *

><p>32.<p>

Dean has just finished escorting the remaining, really kinda traumatised couple to their car when he hears a loud 'pst' coming from his car. That's... weird. He makes his way over cautiously. After all this god bullshit, at this point whatever is hiding in his baby could be anything, and probably not something friendly.

Well, he thinks, when he sees who it is, friendly is kind of relative. It's Gabriel. Gabriel who they all saw just get stabbed by Kali. Admittedly he had been slightly suspicious that he was faking it due to the conspicuous lack of wing-shadows. The pagan fuckers apparently don't know about that little tell. Still, he would've thought Gabriel would have just made a break for it, run off to safety and left them to it.

"Hey, Dean," the archangel says. "Don't look at me. Act natural. Get in."

"There's nothing _natural_ about this at all. What the fuck are you doing?" Dean asks, pulling open the driver's seat door and sliding in, turned so he can get a good view of the sneaky bastard hiding in the back seat.

"Trying not to _die_," Gabriel says back. "But we've got bigger problems. Kali still has our blood for one. Oh, and fakeo-Lucifer has just snapped up a massive set of anti-pagan binding wards around the whole place! He's gonna be here soon and I can't get in and none of the gods can get out. I don't think they've noticed yet, but they will soon, and then all hell's going to break loose."

"What!" Son of a demon-spawned, Hell-bound, cock-sucking bitch this is the _last_ thing they need. "What kind of wards?"

"Something he's been working on for a while, judging by how strong it is," Gabriel says, making a face. "Old magic. Fucking Grigori. I've never liked them. I'm sure the pagan gang could break it given enough time, but they're not all exactly at 100% strength. Coming to a council too hot would be impolite, and some of them were pretty damn weak to begin with. And Luci-fake will be coming in bursting with Horsemen energy and probably a lot of blood sacrifices. He'll be well prepared. I wonder who sold them out..."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Dean asks. Taking on the devil has always been the end-game sure, but these sound like about the worst possible circumstances for it. They only have two rings, for one thing. Goddamit.

"Get our blood and we can get the hell out of here. Kali likes you, I bet you can get close enough to lift the plasma, then we vamoose."

"You're just gonna leave all your buddies back there to die?" Dean asks. Oh wait, why is he surprised, this is completely typical from the cowardly little sack of shit.

"_Please_," Gabriel says. "One, they just tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded. Two, they're avatars, not the gods themselves. You can't kill them while someone still believes in them. It'll just take them a bit of time to assume corporeal form again and resume interacting with the world. Nothing permanent."

"Well... yeah but I bet it's still gonna suck, right?" Normally Dean wouldn't give a crap about this, but... from what he can see the pagans have been Gabriel's family for centuries now. Not by blood but chosen family is still family, he knows that much. Like Bobby and Cas. Turning your back on your family... it just isn't something you do. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"I'm not opposed to you giving them a heads-up while you're in there but focus on getting 'Team Free Will' out of there. You guys _can_ die, remember? And you're kinda needed to stop the Apocalypse."

"Didn't know you cared," Dean says, grinning just to annoy the guy.

"I'm helping you this _one time_, remember," Gabriel says, holding up one finger for emphasis. "One. Time. Then it's back to business as usual."

Dean fires off a sarcastic little salute as a goodbye before he leaves the car. Seems whatever these wards are, they don't work on humans. Pagans only he hopes, otherwise Cas, and the lying twosome might have a bit of trouble. Anyway... he has a job to do.

* * *

><p>"So you just need to squeege some stuff from my ribs and he'll come running," Sam says, shifting nervously. This is a terrible, terrible plan.<p>

"Breaking them would be easier," Kali says, coming closer with the casual walk of some predatory big cat. Baldur follows her like a shadow, which is slightly ironic considering his role in mythology. He's just starting to sweat when the big doors behind him open and Dean comes back.

"Show's over," he says. "We've got problems. Apparently Lucifer is on his way here and he's snapped up some kind of anti-god firewall."

"What nonsense are you spouting, little mortal," Kali asks scornfully.

"Just passing on the intel," Dean replies. "Haven't you got super godly powers? Reach out and check or something." He wiggles his fingers in imitation of said 'powers'.

Sam doesn't have the faintest idea whether it's true or where Dean heard it, but looking around the room at the suddenly tense faces, including those of Aziraphale and Crowley, _something_ bad is about to happen. And if Lucifer is coming here... here is absolutely where Sam does not want to be. It's bad enough having angels try and torture them into saying 'yes', having the devil do it would be even worse. Even if he's only a substitute devil. Sure, he says he's all about destiny and Sam's 'yes' being inevitable but maybe he'll get... impatient.

"The traitor," Kali turns her head towards Gabriel's stretched out body, and there is a truly frightening amount of venom in her voice. The very air around her seems to shudder with rage and power.

"Actually no," Dean says. "Or not that one at least. Uh... he's kinda the one who gave me the info in the first place."

"Trickster." Kali sounds almost impressed. The turnaround is impressively quick. She's even smiling... if it can be called a smile.

The brief moment of tense silence is broken by the screech of a chair across the floor. Crowley stands up and clears his throat.

"Consssidering the ssssituation," he says, sibilants hissing in a curious almost-stutter, "it looksss like this meeting isss over. Ssseeing as sssome of us are more... mortal... than otherssss... Can we go now?"

"And give up our future bait?" Baldur says.

"You must know the battlefield is stacked against you," Aziraphale replies. He is one of the few who looks completely calm, his hands folded on the table in front of him, leaning back in his chair. Though looking something doesn't actually mean anything. Even at this point Sam can't read angel body-language 100%. "Even if he does not succeed in banishing you from this plane, it is almost certain that your 'bait' will be caught in the crossfire and destroyed. Keeping us here gains you nothing."

"He is right," Kali says, abruptly turning to address the other gods. "There will be other times. We have let our guard down, but this is nothing more than a setback. Let him come. He will not find the fight easy, and every blow to his power is a blow to the Apocalypse." She turns her head back to Aziraphale, and gives him a short nod, almost a gesture of respect. "Perhaps your Samael will get to him before us. Personally I would prefer to take my vengeance, but I do not doubt that the Light-bringer will destroy the usurper utterly. The end of his miserable existence will have to suffice."

She reaches out, and Sam puts out his hand automatically. Four vials of blood drop into his palm.

"You should take more care human," Kali tells him. "You of all your kind should know the value of blood."

Sam swallows around a suddenly dry mouth. But... that seems to have been their permission to leave. Honestly he's glad all this is over with, even if it had been kind of... sudden. It hasn't been the most pleasant of experiences. It seems they've been lucky. They're going free.

* * *

><p>Aziraphale can't quite express how glad he is to see that Gabriel is still alive. He may be a neutral party, not entirely on their side, but he is still one of the Seven, and their number has been reduced enough already. There is something profoundly unnatural and unnerving about the death of Archangels, and he is just relieved that nothing terrible has happened.<p>

"Everyone make it out in one piece?" the Archangel asks. He is leaning against Dean's car, his arms folded, his face inscrutable. His wings tell a different story – all three pairs are folded down tight to his back and what few feathers are visible are ruffled and untidy. However he faked his death, it doesn't seem to have been easy.

"Get off my baby," Dean says, striding over and making little shooing motions with his hands. "And yeah, we're all fine, thanks for nothing. Fat lot of good you were."

Gabriel shrugs. "Whatever. You're alive. I can get out of here now." He pauses. "You're not gonna dump the Seraph and the demon the moment I fly off are you? 'Cos, a bit of advice; you pathetic schmucks really do need the muscle if you want to make it past the end of the world without dying horribly. Just sayin'."

Dean goes tense, but he doesn't actually protest, which Aziraphale thinks is a good sign. He does wish the lies hadn't been necessary, and he certainly doesn't blame them for reacting badly. It would have been better to tell them sooner, but... well, things seem to have turned out alright in the end. He expects things will be strained for a while, but he is sure the Winchesters will find it in their hearts to forgive them. As to Castiel...

He still doesn't know how to help Castiel.

"Well," Gabriel says, straightening up. "I hope I _don't_ see you guys again anytime soon. Give my big bro my love next time you see him, it'll piss him off. Sayonara." And with that he is gone.

"Urg," Dean says. "Good riddance." He glares over at Aziraphale and Crowley. "Get in the car. I want to get as far away from here as possible."

"Do you think we sssshould make them an apology card?" Crowley says, sidling closer. Their wings brush, and Aziraphale takes comfort in the contact. "Y'know, 'sorry our bossss is the devil', that sssort of thing."

Aziraphale smiles. Things didn't turn out so badly after all. Ineffable.

* * *

><p>33.<p>

The hunt for Pestilence is not going well. So far the Horseman has proved elusive in the extreme, hopping from place to place spreading disease in his wake, delayed just enough to make tracking his path nigh impossible. Between two hunters, an angel, a demon and an ex-angel, Crowley thinks, they shouldn't be having this much trouble finding one lousy Horseman.

Sam and Dean have just returned from scoping out an outbreak of perfectly normal seeming swine-flu and they're heading off towards the next hotspot on their list. The humans in the front are on the phone to Robert Singer, who is co-ordinating their information. Crowley has to admit, he actually seems to know what he's talking about most of the time, which makes a change to most humans, or hell, even most hunters, not that he's had a particularly large sample to make an impression from.

"Did you get _anything_?" the man is currently asking. "We got even a snowball at probable next target?"

"No pattern that we can see," Sam replies.

"What about our supernatural sources? Haven't they come up with anything?"

"Pestilence seems to be aware that someone with our abilities might be trying to find him," Aziraphale says, leaning forward closer to the phone Sam is holding up in the air between them all. "He's blocked himself completely. It seems the only option we have is to keep following his trail."

A sigh comes over the line. "Okay. Well, as far as I can tell he's still heading East. So... head East I guess."

"We're in West Nevada," Dean grumbles, "East is all there is."

Crowley is about to say something snarky, but all of a sudden there is something rather more important demanding his attention. "Pull over," he snaps, reaching over to tap Dean insistently on the shoulder. "Pull over now."

"What the fuck?" Dean says. "Get your fucking demon hands off me."

"Jusssst do it!"

They come to a halt at the side of the highway, and Crowley is immediately leaping out of the car, looking around anxiously. He knows that energy signature, it's around here somewhere...

At first there is nothing. Then someone is standing in the middle of the road, caught in the light of the streetlamp nearby.

"James!" Crowley says, a wide grin breaking across his face. "I see you made it out alive. You should have let me know sooner." Not that he's about to admit he was worried. They're demons; that just wouldn't be done.

"Yeah, I'm alive," James snaps, "and no thanks to you! It was your stupid plan. They burned down my house! They ate my tailor! I thought you'd have done your ritual by now and offed the bastard fake."

Yeah, Crowley thinks, feeling guilty, he has a point. Releasing the Horsemen has been going slower than anticipated.

"You!" Dean says from behind him, climbing out of the car quickly followed by the other members of their little gang. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to talk, actually," James sneers. "Thought if I gave you a hand maybe I could actually come out of hiding sometime this century."

"You want to talk," Sam says. He's got that demon-killing knife of theirs in his hand. "After what you did to us?"

"After what I... what _I_ did to you?" James says, sounding as hurt as a demon can. "I gave you the Colt!"

"Yeah, and you knew it wouldn't work!"

"Hey, I did it-"

Crowley makes desperate 'stop talking, stop talking right now' motions where the Winchesters can't see them. He's not 100% sure whether they ever came clear about that whole Colt thing but if not, he's pretty sure now would not be a good time for them to find out.

James coughs, changing tack. "I _didn't_ know that. I was working in good faith, gentlemen, I promise."

"Listen," Dean says, "give us one good reason why we should listen to anything you say."

James smirks. "I can give you Pestilence."

* * *

><p>Anthony looks much as he always has, as though this whole sodding mess of an Apocalypse has barely touched him. Crowley would very much like to hate him for it, but while hate is normally the natural state of being for a demon, that emotion can be twisted round into something almost like affection when it comes to family. And Anthony is undoubtedly family.<p>

"Don't think I'll be forgetting which one of us had to scrape around in the dirt once this is over," he growls in the Fallen's ear as they arrive at his current hide-out, a piece of shit cabin in the middle of a nowhere.

Anthony's answering smirk looks almost bloody sheepish, if Crowley could ever ascribe such an emotion to the slick motherfucker. Whatever he's really feeling, a debt is a debt, and Crowley intends to collect when the opportunity comes, and he knows Anthony at least has the good sense to honour that. Debts are respected in hell.

"So you two know each other," Dean Winchester says once the whole cavalcade has made its way inside.

"It's the names isn't it," Crowley says. "They're a dead giveaway, they are."

"Whatever," the hunter says, folding his arms. "I'm not even going to ask about the whole Colt business, 'cos I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like the answer, and we've had enough goddamn arguments about lying and fucking betrayal and we just need to get stopping the end of the world out of the way before me, Sam and Cas can decide whether or not to try and gank you. And I'm guessing he told you about the rings plan too."

Crowley doesn't deny it. Simpler to let them think that. He might still need the spelled coin at some point. "Let's just say I've been doing a bit of investigation of my own," he says.

"So you can get us Pestilence."

"Well, I don't know where he is per se. But I do know the demon who does. He's what you might call the horsemen's stable boy; he handles their itineraries, their personal needs. He'll get us Sneezy."

"And you couldn't have told your boss about that sooner?" Dean asks, jerking his thumb in Anthony's direction in case they couldn't tell who he meant. Crowley's not sure whether to take offence. Anthony is an ally, not a superior, but honestly, they have bigger fish to fry.

"It's not been easy doing all this and staying under the radar," he snaps. "Give me a break! I found you guys as soon as I could."

"And we do appreciate it," Anthony's angel says, inserting himself smoothly into the conversation. "We've certainly been having some trouble tracking him down ourselves."

"So what do we do when we've got him?" Sam asks. "How do we get him to spill?"

"Rip out his toenails?" Dean asks, sounding a little hopeful. Crowley smirks at him. He hasn't forgotten what the self-righteous man did in hell.

"No," he replies. "Nuts at his pay grade don't crack. We don't have the benefit of time of Hell's violations of biology and physics. We bring him here, then I sell him." He risks a glance at Anthony, and is pleased to see the Fallen is looking almost proud. They both appreciate a job well done, and deals are Crowley's business.

"Sell him?" Sam asks.

"Please. I've sold sin to saints for centuries. Think I can't close one little demon?"

"Certainly I'll vouch for him," Anthony says.

"Alright." Crowley knows when a man has accepted a deal, and Dean just has. "So where's this demon of yours?"


	7. Chapter 7

**34.**

"Forgotten how to use your vessel's vocal cords?"

The Winchester's personal pet angel has been a silent presence in the corner of the room, not speaking either for or against the idea of working with a demon. Discounting Anthony's Seraph, who is quite clearly not in his right mind, this is very out of character for one of Heaven's Host. Yet not so much of that anymore either. Crowley has never met the bugger before today, but even he can see that he's not exactly at full strength. More mortal than divine.

"Leave my sight, hell-spawn," Castiel says, but his heart's not in it. Hell, there's no fire in the words, barely a spark of emotion in his eyes. Crowley sighs. A depressed angel. Just what they need, when the whole damn world's on the line.

"What's got you so mopey, wings?" he asks. "Is the torrid relationship with Dean not going well? Are the humans confusing your poor little brainwashed mind? Are you moulting?" Now that he comes to notice, the angel is looking decidedly mangey around the feathery bits.

The glare he gets in return is almost spirited, which is strangely something of a relief. It's not like he actually gives a fuck about the boring little god-botherer.

"I should have expected your mockery, demon," the angel says, practically growling. "And I would make you pay for your words if I were still as I once was."

Once was? Crowley raises an eyebrow. Well, well. The Winchester's angel has run into a bit of a Faith problem. He's well on his way to Falling, if he hasn't already. It's enough to warm the cockles of his shrunken, black, demon heart. On the other hand, it does make the angel more than a little useless in the fight against the false Lucifer. And dead-weight isn't something they can tolerate at this point.

What to do about it, that's the question. Unfortunately the humans have this inconvenient attachment to Castiel, so they won't be pleased if he suggests chucking him out on the street, and Anthony's Seraph, for all that he's bloody strange, is still an angel and won't take kindly to it either. If getting rid of him won't work, Crowley will just have to find an alternative solution. He's not willing to put his own immortal existence in danger because of one moody once-angel.

Devil Below, this is actually going to count as a good deed. Urg, the very thought curdles his stomach.

"Yeah, loosing that whole Faith thing is pretty unhealthy for your kind," he says. "Guess your so-called Father didn't exactly live up to your expectations. If I were you I'd go about finding something else to put your faith in, unless wasting away to your death is the kind of lifestyle choice that appeals to you."

The angel glares at him, but Crowley is pretty sure he's listening.

"I mean, you think the Fallen didn't have to find something new, back in the beginning? 'Course they put their faith in Lucifer. Glad us modern bastards don't have to be bothered with any of that."

"I have no intention of swearing myself over to the Adversary's service," Castiel says, his eyes narrowing and the remnants of his wings bristling.

"Did I say that? Did I say that? No, I didn't. Hell, put your faith in Dean Winchester, for all I care. After all, if you ask me, that's what you've really been doing all along, now hasn't it."

Crowley reckons that has given the little feather-duster enough to think about for now. Who said demons had to lie to stir up a bit of trouble? The truth has always been Lucifer's weapon after all, the real one.

He leaves Castiel to mull things over, smirking. Now they have a demon to catch.

* * *

><p>"I need to talk to you," Crowley tells Anthony quietly, once the hunters have been distracted. "Alone." Anthony glances at his angel. "All right, him too." He'd only tell the Seraph once they were done anyway, and it's better to get all of the silly moral objections out of the way first in a way that he can reasonably deflect.<p>

"All right," Anthony says, once the three of them have made their way to one of the other rooms. He's wise enough to keep his voice down; these walls were thin enough before age and decay ate holes through them. "What's this about?"

"I wanted to discuss my plan with you before we get started."

"There's something you don't want the Winchesters to hear," the angel says, which is an unfortunately accurate assessment of the situation.

"Yeah, and I've got good reasons," Crowley says. "Namely, demon-blood back there has a personal interest in the case. The demon who we're after – who, buy the way, is _your_ kind of demon Anthony – decided to get into the possession gig a few years back, took over the body of one of his college pals."

"And Sam wants revenge?" Anthony asks.

"Hah! The little shit never even noticed. And meanwhile our target was manipulating his life. I have reason to believe he was working for Azazel, the Grigori bastard who started this whole mess before getting himself shot in the head with the Colt. If Sammy-boy comes along on this trip everything's going to be fucked faster than you can say 'Inigo Montoya'."

Anthony lets out a frustrated little sigh and runs his fingers through his hair. Crowley enjoys the view. He loves it when he gets ticked off, his pupils go all slitty. "You've got a way to deal with this, I presume?"

"Course I have! What do you take me for?" Crowley grins. "We're not going to be bringing him along. Hell, you're not coming either Seraph."

The angel frowns. "But with my sword I could probably take on a Fallen... Unless he's a Duke?"

"Nothing so dangerous," Crowley says. "And I'm sure you could smite him, no sweat. But it's not smiting we want, we need him alive and able to talk. One look at you and he'll run for the hills. Subtlety and trickery are today's watchwords folks. So here's what we do..."

* * *

><p>Head wounds, bruised ribs, bruises all over... this was <em>not<em> the plan as Dean had been sold it. The unconscious body of the Fallen they're hunting is sprawled out on the floor in front of him with a pair of those bastard Crowleys standing over it smirking, and he wants to know exactly what part of letting him get kicked around for shits and giggles is meant to make him feel any more favourably towards these so-called allies.

Why couldn't the Fallen Crowley have taken on the stable-boy, huh? 'Oh, it'll scare him off' his _ass_.

"Fuck the both of you," he says, aching at each breath he takes. "You fucking douchebags. Or did you forget you actually need me and Sam for this stupid ritual of yours and so maybe it would be a _stupid_ idea to get on our _bad_ side, huh?"

Fallen Crowley looks at him over the tops of his sunglasses, which he is wearing both indoors and at night, if further proof was needed that he's an utter tool. "It worked though, didn't it," he points out, sounding amused. Dick.

"Imagine the look of surprise on your face," Demon Crowley says. "Your ignorance and misinformation – completely authentic, I mean, you can't fake that. It went like clockwork!"

"Not for me you sons of bitches," Dean says.

Fallen Crowley sighs and takes a step forward. Dean ducks away, not wanting to have the damn snake anywhere near him. Literal snake, apparently, but really he's pretty jaded at this point to meeting famous mythological figures, so it's not like he gives a damn about it. One angel is pretty much like another anyway, fallen or not.

"I'm trying to help, you idiot," the bastard says, and tries again. Dean feels a wash of vaguely nauseating energy sweep through him, but it is true that he feels a lot better after it. He glares.

"Since when could anything that stepped out of Hell heal?" he asks. He's still not exactly going to forgive them for having fun at the expense of his pain, even if they could fix it up again afterwards.

"How do you think we keep our meatsuits functional?" Demon Crowley says, sneering. "Not to mention Anthony used to be an angel. I'm sure even a bear of so little brain as you couldn't have forgotten that fact already."

It's weirdly... protective. Fuck. Demon families. How fucking messed up. For a moment Dean has the memories of Hell flashing before him, feels Alistair's breath hot on the back of his neck, his hand guiding a knife as it slides through the flesh of a screaming soul. He shudders, trying to force the sensation away. That almost-affection had seemed so comforting after thirty years of torture, almost seductive. Back then he would have done anything that bastard asked of him. The way the demon looks at his 'sire' is a sickening reminder of that, and he doesn't want to look. Yet there's a part of him that can't look away whenever something like it happens.

"Whatever," Dean snarls, wiping at the drying blood on the side of his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Let's just get this demon back to the cabin, alright."

* * *

><p>Aziraphale takes the opportunity presented by the absence of half their team to speak to Castiel. He had seen James talking to him earlier, and ever since the younger angel's habitual silence has been more... introspective... than it has in the past. He is, he'll admit, perhaps a little worried about whatever the demon had said to him. At this moment Castiel is in such a fragile state... It is why Aziraphale himself had been reluctant to broach the subject of his Fall with him before, but now it seems he may have no choice.<p>

Samuel Winchester is speaking to Robert Singer on his phone in another room, leaving the two of them alone. No better time is likely to present itself.

Aziraphale joins his brother where he is standing, staring out of the window into the rain-swept and night-clad forest. Normally he would offer some small measure of comfort by brushing their wings together, but Castiel's are in such ruin that he thinks it would do more harm than good.

"Do you mind if I have a word with you, Castiel?" he asks.

The blank gaze the near Fallen angel gives him is painful to look upon, but he makes no objection. Aziraphale hesitates, twisting his hands together in his nervousness. What if he makes this worse? What if he says the wrong thing?

"What was it that James Crowley was discussing with you earlier?" he asks at last.

"Faith, strangely enough. I don't know quite what he meant by his words, but I found them... interesting. Worth meditating upon."

That seems... concerning. "Could you perhaps be a little more specific?"

"He told me I should find something else to put my Faith in," Castiel explains. He seems more willing to talk than Aziraphale had expected, which is hopefully a good sign. "He said, and I now realise that I have been deluding myself about this matter, that all this has come about because I put my Faith in Dean Winchester instead of my family. That humanity became more important to me. I chose to follow the Righteous Man and humanity, over our Father's chosen archangels. Perhaps this was wrong, I do not know. It would seem that He really is no longer here to give us guidance, so how can I tell if I acted in a manner that he would approve of?"

"If it means anything," Aziraphale says, "I believe you made the right choice. That is why Crowley and I are here, after all. Humanity is important. Free Will is important. This destiny that Raphael, and Zachariah are trying to force upon the world... it's wrong. Even before Father left, it wasn't in the plan anymore."

"How can you still have Faith?" Castiel asks him, turning to look at him for the first time. His brow is furrowed in confusion. "You admit that He is gone, that He has abandoned us. And yet you still believe in Him? You have not Fallen."

"I have Faith that this is all part of his Plan," he replies. "That this is the culmination of all he intended; gifting Free Will to all creatures, not just mortals. I believe that even though he is gone, those things He set in motion continue on. That things will work out in the end, if we fight for them, and have Faith that we are doing what is right."

"I do not think that adopting that viewpoint will help me."

"Perhaps not," Aziraphale says. "But – though I never thought I would say this – James was right. You have to find something else to believe in, something else to sustain you. And although I will try and help you as much as I can, in the end I suppose only you can truly know what will be right for you."

Castiel returns his gaze to the storm outside. "Thank you," he says. "But I would like to be alone to think now."

"Of course."

Aziraphale leaves the younger angel to his thoughts. He has to admit, Castiel does seem less melancholy than he has previously. It can only be a good sign, and if he can find something that will fill the hole made by the truth of their Father's disappearance, that will surely help him even more.

It seems that in this case, it took a demon to do what an angel should have done long ago.

* * *

><p><strong>35.<strong>

Crowley sits in the back of the Impala with James and their new captive as they head in the general direction of the cabin, helping his protégé with the binding runes and sigils they are carving into the possessed flesh of his sort-of-brother's meatsuit. It's a complicated variety, and while James has a very good knowledge of the sort of thing, it isn't entirely comprehensive. Crowley is still the elder here, it stands to reason that he has more experience, and what sort of mentor would he be if he didn't know more than the demon he was teaching?

"A little more curl in the tail of that one," he points out helpfully. James grunts his acknowledgement, and flicks the knife just right.

"You are aware we can't take him back to Sam," he announces to the car at large. In the front seat, Dean cranes his head around to look at them in disbelief for a moment before he has to turn his attention back to the road.

"Why the hell not?"

James hesitates. Crowley already knows about this, and he's not sure James is wrong about this. This plan he has mostly left in his protégé's hands, as much to make up for all the inconvenience he's had to suffer because of that business with the Colt as anything, though watching Dean Winchester get kicked around _was_ entertaining. But knowing what the younger demon has told him about the situation, he personally wouldn't trust Sam to keep his temper around their captive. Aziraphale had disagreed, but had let them go along with their version of the plan as long as Crowley had promised they would leave the real decision up to Dean.

"They have history, alright," James says, obviously deciding that the time for that decision has come.

Dean pulls them over at the side of the road far too fast, the brakes screaming. Yeah, he's not exactly pleased with them right now, Crowley thinks, possibly starting to regret the way they had played him back at the pharmaceutical company building, albeit only because it's causing problems like this.

"You want to go anywhere, you had better start explaining," the human says.

* * *

><p>As it works out, they do end up taking 'Brady' back to the cabin and the others. James had not been too keen on it until Crowley had pointed out that if the worst came to the worst, between the three of the supernatural creatures that they were, restraining one not-so-little human wouldn't be <em>that<em> difficult, even if he was a hunter. So here they are, one captive tied up inside an Enochian binding circle for extra safety, two wary denizens of Hell, and one hunter about to explain to his brother how yes, this Fallen had totally dicked him over back in the past, but no he shouldn't take that out on the guy by stabbing him a bunch of times with an angelic blade.

Or the demon killing knife. They hadn't actually tested it yet, but there was a chance it might work on a sufficiently Hell-tainted Fallen.

Of course, since Dean had apparently decided the best way to do that was with the handy addition of a visual aid, ie. the Fallen in question, things were more than a little... tense.

"You know, we probably should have invested in a gag," Crowley says to James, as 'Brady' is mid-way through throwing all the unpleasant things he did during their college years in Sam's face. He should probably go find Aziraphale before things get worse. Apparently he went off to talk to Castiel, although if the back and forth gets much louder the pair of them will hear the noise no matter where in this run down shack they are.

"It would have been wise," James replies. "But there is a certain bloody enjoyment in this. Like watching a car crash, or a ship sinking." His grin is human-vicious. "Course, we might have to grab him in a moment."

"You son of a bitch, you introduced me to Jess!" Sam snarls, and oh, there he goes.

"Damn it Sam," Dean says, grabbing hold of his brother's jacket, and Crowley takes a step forward to do the same. It's not too difficult to hold him back with his more than human strength, and right now the hunter is too focused on the creature he once thought was his friend to think about fighting them off effectively. They drag him out of the room, leaving James to talk to the smirking Fallen, and Dean to try and talk some sense into his brother.

Crowley feels safe enough in the moment to go and find Zira. If Dean fails, there'll be no-one better than an angel to get through to an angry, vengeful human. And honestly, he's not entirely confident of Dean Winchester's powers of persuasion.

* * *

><p>James Crowley is very good at what he does. He knows this. He knows how to manipulate, how to work the angles, the personality, the hidden weaknesses. He knows how to threaten and cajole, how to promise and wheedle. But humans, be they demonic or destined to become so after he wins their souls, are not the same as a Fallen angel. And a Grigori at that, though one who has spent time enough in Hell that the distinction is mostly academic.<p>

It's a good thing he likes a challenge.

"You don't really think Samyaza, or Lucifer, or whatever he's going by these days, is going to win this one do you?" he asks, straddling a chair and watching their captive closely. "If the real deal doesn't manage to get him, Zachariah and Raphael will double cross him and kill you all. You do know that?"

The Fallen laughs. "Do you think we're stupid? Of course the angels are only using us, just like we are only using them. But we're stronger than they are, we're better than they are. Heaven is divided, they've lost their drive. We're going to win, and we're going to take the Throne."

"And Samael?"

"He's no threat," the once-angel says scornfully. "He's Nameless, weakened. All he has is a few humans and a few traitors. You can't stop us. You need me to get the other rings, and you clearly need the rings for whatever your plan is. And I have no plans of talking."

"I don't know, we have a certain amount of experience with torture," Crowley says, mostly to get it out of the way. The threat is more a formality than anything, he's well aware he's not going to get results there. "We've got a human who showed more promise under Alistair than any of the old bastard's students had before, we've got me, and I'm not exactly an amateur here you understand, and most fun of all, we've got a Seraph with a flaming sword. I bet that'll sting when we skin you with it."

The Fallen sneers. "Maybe you should be a little less worried about what you could do to me, and a little more worried about what Lucifer is going to do to you."

"It has crossed my mind, but it's not really the point."

"Actually Crowley, that _is_ the point. No-one will know greater torment than you." The Fallen is grinning, his teeth stained with blood. "Lucifer is never going to let you die. As for me, I know the score. I'm dead, whether I tell you anything or not. So I think I'll die on the winning side, thanks."

Obnoxious little shit. But really, Crowley always knew it would come down to what he'd like to term the psychological factors, what if they had more time would consist of mind games, manipulation and the like. In this case though they've not got long before the Fallen's absence gets noticed and they send someone out to find him. It's time to change the parameters of the situation.

"Good talk," he says, gets up, and leaves the room. This is really going to suck, big time. It's putting himself in danger again, which is just completely contrary to his personal philosophy of keeping his own skin in one piece. Still, this is his plan, and he's capable of handling a few low-level, newly turned, once-humans. Might even be cathartic, after all the bloody trouble he's been put to ever since the Colt debacle.

Baiting a hive of demons. Oh what fun. Now if only Sam Winchester can keep from killing their best lead whilst he's gone.

* * *

><p>Castiel has much to consider. For too long he has allowed himself to be consumed by his grief, by his sense of abandonment and loss. He had tied too much of his hope for victory on finding his Father, and then to have absolute, soul-deep confirmation that he had left Creation... he had not handled it well.<p>

But he believes he has begun to find his equilibrium once again. He has heard humans speak of the 'five stages of grief', and though he spent much time mired in 'depression', he is finally ready to move on to 'acceptance'. Strange, that it should be a demon that provided the impetus for this change. But that is merely the reality of a world bereft of his Father. All the rules have changed. Everything is different. He must adapt, and that by his nature marks him as no longer what he once was. Angels are not swift to alter their views.

The loss of his Grace aches inside of him, yes, but he supposes the question he must now ask himself is what he will make of himself now. Will he become human, as Anna did? Will he try and cling to the tattered remains of his immortality, and inevitably doom himself? Will he allow his anger at his Father to consume him and make him something of the Pit?

It is too much to expect that finding another source of Faith will restore his Grace. It will not. But it will provide... stability. An anchor. Until he is capable of independence, of that Free Will that he has been working towards all along without truly realising it.

As to what the nature of that anchor should be, Castiel believes there is no question about it. It is Dean. It has always been Dean. He has denied the depth of their connection, couching it in mealy-mouthed terms of a 'profound bond' rather than call it what it is. What is this devoted Faith but love itself? He loves Dean. He loves a human. And as he is no longer an angel, he can act on that love without fear of that most terrible of creatures, a Nephilim.

Thus, he waits until James Crowley has left, until Aziraphale and Anthony Crowley are guarding their prisoner, until Samuel has gone to be alone with his own thoughts. Then he approaches Dean, and speaks.

"May I talk to you, alone?" he asks.

Dean stands, leaving his bottle of beer on the table. "Sure Cas. What do you wanna talk about?"

* * *

><p><strong>36.<strong>

The orgy of wanton destruction he had visited on the poor little baby demons went rather well, Crowley thinks. Some torn to smokey shreds, some banished back to Hell, and one, just one, left alive to wing the message to her immediate commander that the traitorous bastard James Crowley had reappeared and was working with the Horseman's stable-boy. Curse that tricky emotion affection, it's enough to turn the most devout Lucifer-worshiper from the path of evil!

Oh, he _is_ good.

Of course, nothing is ever so easy as all that. Crowley is reminded of this unfortunate lesson when he plucks the Enochian-embossed coin from his jacket pocket where one enterprising youngling had stashed it. That kid would have gone far, if he hadn't been horribly murdered by Crowley himself.

Still, two hunters, an angel, a Fallen, a demon and a whatever-Castiel-is versus a pack of hellhounds. It sounds like a fairly good match-up, in his book. The problem is that no matter how many of the damn things they kill, Hell always has more. The only way to stop them sending pack after pack their way is to break the trace the coin has established, and he trouble with _that_ is getting the mutts off their back for long enough to set up spells to break the trail. The hounds have their scent now, and they are not so easy to shake, particularly not when they are right outside, as he can tell from their howls.

Dean and Castiel burst into the front hall at the unearthly noise, both looking somewhat dishevelled, and Crowley doubts it is from panic. Seems his advice, such as it was, did some good after all if those two repressed fools finally realised what they've been tip-toeing around for months. Aziraphale and Anthony aren't far behind, with Sammy-boy the last to arrive. From the side room, Brady is yelling like a coward. Fallen these days. What's Hell coming to? Looks like the little speech he gave him worked like a charm though.

"Was that a Hellhound?" Dean asks, breathing hard. "Crowley, tell me that was not a fucking Hellhound!"

"I'd say yeah, it was," Crowley replies. "But I wouldn't worry your tiny brain. There are a lot of them, but we can take them."

"A lot? Exactly how many is a lot, and why the hell are they here!"

Crowley has to tell them about the coin, which is hardly the kind of cock-up he wants to admit to under the watchful eyes of Anthony, who looks less than impressed. He's right to. It was a stupid, newbie mistake.

"You have some experience with Hellhounds, I understand," Aziraphale asks him. At the least the Seraph is keeping his cool. They'll be needing that flaming sword.

"Lots," he says. "Which is why I know the spells to break their hold on our supernatural scent. Trouble is they take a little while."

"So we fight," Sam says, looking mulish. Or perhaps moose-ish. Kid looks like killing something is just what he needs right now, and Crowley sees no reason to argue with that.

"Exactly how many are we talking?" Anthony asks, raising an eyebrow. Crowley winces ever so slightly inside.

"About half a hundred," he admits. Reactions to that are less than optimistic. It is in the midst of that angry shouting that he comes up with an idea. As he turns it over in his mind, it starts sounding better and better.

"Hey Anthony," he says, cutting through the argumentative noise. "You remember my prize pit-fighter?"

"That beast?" Anthony starts to smirk. "I remember. What did you call it again, something more than a little silly...?"

"Growley," Crowley says, returning the grin. What can he say, it had been a joke. "I'll just go pick him up, shall I?"

* * *

><p>One rather full Hellwulf and a lot of spilled ichor later, their Hellhound problem has disappeared. James might have messed things up a bit by letting himself be tracked, but equally his great fuzzy monstrosity of a pet had fixed the situation, so all in all Crowley doesn't hold it against him. Anyone can get caught out from time to time.<p>

The plan he had devised had paid off in the end as well. The Fallen had given up Pestilence's location, and in return they had let Sam kill him (somewhat) quickly rather than leaving him to the tender mercies of Samyaza-Lucifer. Perhaps that hadn't been the best idea ever for the hunter's personal development, but Crowley can't really bring himself to care. This Apocalypse has been dragging on for what seems like forever, and there is only so much time he wants to spend in the company of any individual humans, particularly hunters.

Still, two rings down, one within their grasp, and one more to go after that. It seems nearly within their reach. Crowley is actually starting to believe he can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is probably a bad thing, he thinks, as his optimistic and pessimistic sides war inside him. Half the time that light is simply the flames of the fire you're running right into.

"Have you given much thought to how the Hell we're going to get a hold of Death?" James asks him under his breath as they settle into the latest in a long line of depressing motels. He's sharing a room with him and Aziraphale on the basis that no-one else in their little band is going to put up with him. Six is an inconvenient number for their journey.

Crowley shrugs. "It's about time Samael checked in with us again; I thought we could just ask him. He's met Death before, if anyone knew it would be him."

"That's all very well, but said Archangel hasn't exactly been what you might call punctual, now has he," James points out. "What if I said I knew a spell that could find old boney?"

Crowley sighs. He's not going to like this, is he. "I would say, what's the reason you haven't mentioned this before?"

"Just the matter of the unfortunate nature of one of the ingredients. To be precise, one human soul, to act as a catalyst."

"Yes," Crowley says, "I can see what you might have been a bit reluctant to mention it. Which beggars the question of why you're doing that _now_?"

James grins, sharp and more than a little cruel. "Things are coming to a head. People are going to start getting desperate. So what if your angel makes me give the soul back like I know he will? It's one of those nasty moral quandaries that'll leave everyone involved with a nice little patina of tarnish. You've taught me the value of that."

Oh, bloody Manchester. Does every bloody thing he does come back to haunt him? Seems so. Trouble is, if Samael doesn't show up in time they might actually have to agree to go along with James' latest scheme.

And what right does he really have to stop them?

"Fine," he says, "if you think you can convince them, please do go right ahead."

"I knew you'd see things my way, mentor mine," James says, patting him on the back, right between the wings.

Little demon is getting a bit too familiar for his own good.


End file.
